Downsizing Your Home: Top Tips

Downsizing your home can cause anxiety and stress, especially if you love your belongings but hate living in clutter. While knowing when to downsize is difficult, it helps you save money and become more space-efficient. This is especially true if you want to move house from a suburban home to a city apartment with limited room for furniture, clothes, collectables and furniture. Here are some essential tips to help you learn how to downsize your home efficiently and live clutter-free.

Sort Through Your Belongings and Decide What You Want to Keep

When you’re downsizing to a smaller home, you may not have enough space for all the items you have accumulated over the years. This makes it vital to sort through your belongings and decide what you can keep. Start sorting each room individually to make the process easier to manage and less hectic. For example, begin with the living room before moving to the bedroom and the kitchen, and create an inventory of all the items you own.

As you sort through your belongings, separate what you actually need. It helps to think about the lifestyle you want in your new home. This way, you can easily determine the items you should keep and those to dispose of.

Once you start combing and decluttering through your belongings, it may be tempting to make exceptions here and there. Unfortunately, this leads to you simply moving items from one place to another instead of determining where they belong. To avoid this, set some ground rules for sorting your items and stick to them, such as:

Decide What to Recycle or Sell

Create a list to determine the items you want to throw away. In your list, check if you have any duplicated items or if there are any sentimental items that can fit your new home.

If you come across an item you haven’t used in the last six months or a year, it’s time to get rid of it. For other non-sentimental items that you don’t plan to bring into your new home, sell them to friends, neighbours or at a car boot sale.

Decide What to Put into Storage

If you have any excess belongings that hold sentimental value, you can put them in a storage unit, like our Boxx Storage facilities. They’ll be safe and secure and allow you to only move with items you actually use.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to sell some items but want to avoid overcrowding your new home, place them in storage. This gives you more time to decide what to do with them while freeing up more space in your new home for the belongings you want to keep.

Downsize your Furniture

Before moving into your new home, measure the space to determine if your furniture will fit. If your new home is small and needs fewer items, sell your old furniture, and replace it with smaller items.

Having smaller pieces of furniture can make your space feel bigger and more airy immediately. So invest in smaller furniture that makes your new household seem spacious and uncluttered. It’s important to go for quality instead of quantity. This way, you choose a great piece of furniture that makes a bold statement in your space instead of trying to squeeze too many pieces into a smaller room.

Invest in Home Storage Solutions

When downsizing to a smaller home, maximise any storage space you have. Since not all homes have a designated attic, garage or basement for storing belongings, you may want to invest in home storage solutions. For example, buy furniture with built-in storage options such as storage ottomans and nightstands with open and closed drawers. These multifunctional pieces of furniture ensure you can store excess items to keep your space organised and clutter-free.

Traditional shelving is also a great home storage solution. You can use open wall spaces such as floating shelves to display knick knacks around the house and as additional storage in your bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. Be sure to utilise extra areas in your new home such as closets, crawl spaces and under the stairs for storage.

If you’re looking for a storage unit for your personal items before moving, Boxx Storage is happy to help. We make your move easy by providing long and short-term storage for your belongings and offer advice on how to downsize when moving. Contact us today for more information on our storage services.