One of the best things you can do before moving house or office, is to have a nice big tidy up and declutter.
A lot of stuff you have lying around is probably old, broken, unwanted, or out of date - and that just means that moving it will make moving day more difficult, more time consuming, and more expensive.
Imagine going through all that just to throw it away a few days later at the other end?
Moving house will always be a fairly big and daunting task, but by doing this efficiently beforehand, you can ensure it’s only as difficult as it needs to be.
Set Aside Decluttering Time
It might seem easier to just include your decluttering tasks on moving day along with everything else.
But it will almost certainly take longer than you think, as most houses have years of possessions built out, in attics and the back of cupboards and stuffed into crannies all around the house
Trying to do this on moving day might mean you don’t get to the moving part for a few hours, and that is just going to increase stress and make everything more difficult.
Doing this in advance, days or ideally weeks before moving, means you can break it down into smaller tasks, for example decluttering the living room today, the kitchen tomorrow, etc.
This reduces stress and also makes it a lot easier to get rid of all your unwanted items before you have to start packing your important possessions ready for moving day - all of which serves to make moving day just a case of, well, moving.
This is a great time to think about what you’ll do with your unwanted possessions too. Maybe some still have decent value and could be sold. Others might be given to a charity shop. Old, broken and unusable items may need to be recycled.
Spending time planning what to do with each item means more efficient recycling, smaller loads, and an easier time - rather than trying to ship it all off to the landfill on moving day!
Be Ruthless
It’s easy to get sentimental while decluttering. We’ve all done it.
“Oh, I haven’t used this in 4 years, but I really like it, I want to keep it!”.
Nope, get rid. Even if you haven’t used something in a year, it’s unlikely to be important or of use again.
Realistically you should only be keeping the things that are an immediate “yes”. Anything you’re not sure of, is a waste of space and unnecessary additional weight while moving, and likely will just get stuffed in a cupboard never to be seen again at the other end.
Label Everything
While decluttering, it’s a good idea to keep things separate and clearly labelled. Things you’re keeping for the move, things you’re recycling or throwing away, and things you’re selling or giving away, should all be clearly separated from each other.
The worst thing you can do is just put it all in a pile of similar looking black bags, or a stack of plain cardboard boxes.
This will only mean you get confused when it’s time to get rid of stuff, and again when it comes to moving time!
It’s also recommended to use proper containers for each item. For example, cardboard boxes might be ok for lighter items such as clothes but should not be used for heavier items as they can deform or break during transport. Plastic rental crates are much more reliable and durable for this use.
Keep Everything Organised
Remember, everything you own needs to be either sold, recycled, given to charity, or safely kept and moved to your new location.
This will likely be a much higher volume of items than you expect in total, once it gets to things like emptying sock drawers and kitchen cupboards.
Keep each task and the related boxes separate to make this easy to manage. For example, a pile of recycling to go to the local recycling centre should be kept away from everything else. You should also plan a suitable time to go to the recycling centre, that is ideally a few days before moving day at least, and well clear of all other related tasks.
This means each task will simply become a case of doing it, rather than running around ensuring you’ve got the right boxes, or going to deliver them just to find out you missed some, or they were the wrong boxes.
Get Professional Help with Moving
At phs Teacrate, we are the nation’s leading provider of removal crates for hire, managing over 9 million crates per year in the UK alone.
We also offer most other removal related services, including specialised IT equipment crates, solutions for specialised industry such as pharmaceuticals and refurbishment, crate washing services, and can also handle the complete packing, organisation and transport of your crates.
With crate capacities ranging from 25 to 165 litres, no job is too big or too small for phs Teacrate. We serve the needs of households and businesses undertaking home or office moves, re-organisations, refurbishments or complete relocations.
We offer rental and outright purchase options and complimentary custom logo branding. Our crates are manufactured with phs Teacrate owned equipment, from tough polypropylene and provide a high level of protection for contents. They may be stacked when full and nested when empty for space saving. All our crates are 100% recyclable at the end of their life, therefore fully adhering to the waste framework directive and helping the environment.
We have a wide range of RTP products to meet the requirements of the food and retails sectors as well as logistics operations across a range of industries. Our products include bale arm crates, plastic pallets and pallet boxes. We also offer a full wash service where we collect, clean and return your food crates ready to use. We have the capacity to wash up to 400,000 crates every week.
To learn more, or to get our expert help with your commercial or private move, contact us now!