Moving and downsizing. Help!

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We're moving from a 4 bed house to a 2 bed flat and I'm trying to sort through the years of accumulated stuff and pack but I'm getting a bit overwhelmed.

Right now I'm wishing I could leave the lot, call in a house clearance company and start again but that's not an option financially or realistically.

Any tips on getting this done quickly and less stressfully please?

Go through the house room by room and give away anything that you haven't used in 6 months to a year.
Get rid of anything garden related if you'll have no need for it.
Do a big clear out of food and kitchen items that you don't really need.
Get vacuum storage bags for spare blankets, duvets pillows etc.

What is your deadline?

You are feeling overwhelmed because you are looking at this task as a whole and it is a huge task! Best to break it down in to small steps a la Flylady, and then break down each of those steps even further.

What is your deadline? If you have a reasonable amount of time then you can try and get in to a routine doing two hours a day or whatever, using timers to motivate you.

Be clear about your objectives: which could be (a) not wasting time and money moving clutter and (b) ultimately everything having a place.

You need a very clear idea of what will fit where in your new home, and to that end, it's an opportunity to be quite ruthless!

Start with ornaments and pictures on the wall and books and hobby equipment to get your eye in, then do clothes, then something like the kitchen. Take three boxes in to each room: junk, charity, keep. If you are dithering, err on the side of getting rid. Label the keep boxes well.

Good luck!

Thank you. I've already got rid of quite a bit but I'm worrying now that I won't have room to put what I do want to keep. Lots of furniture needs to go but finding somewhere to collect it is a challenge.

I'd love a clutter free life but how do people do the 'a place for everything' thing? Do they just not have much stuff? Or loads of space and storage?

Will sit down for 10 minutes with a coffee and find Flylady.

Or, approach it from the other side. What do you need? Maybe write a list together of what you need. It could be at whatever level you like - 1 chest of drawers full of clothes, or 7 tops, 10 pairs of knickers, etc. But not all your current cupboards full of all your clothes. Eg do you have big piles of old duvets & towels? If you share a room, you probably only need 2 duvet covers. One on, one either in the wash or for guests. Maybe make it 3 if you want. Similar with towels. We have 2 per person. We never have more people to stay than we have people living here, and if we did, we could just ask someone to bring a towel. Ditto plates - you don't have to keep 12 just in case you once invite that many people over. If you're hosting a big thing, people will know you're stretched and won't mind bringing an extra couple of plates or a chair. If you have fancy china and normal, do they both earn their space?

The more you get rid of now, the cheaper the moving costs will be and the happier you will be in your flat, because you will experience it as more spacious. You're getting rid of Stuff so that you can enjoy the space in your new home.

Should have said - the Flylady website is a bit clunky imho and the language somewhat barftastic - but the underlying system is sound.

Tbh Flylady is better for maintenance rather than major decluttering but I meant that the principles of breaking large tasks down in to short, focused bursts of activity, might work for you.

We re doing similar, but no deadline yet.

Do you have a loft, start here, and the garage if you have one.
Don't be tempted to fill them again, except maybe furniture to go can be stored in garage or outbuilding.

Go through your new place and do a rough plan of where furniture will go. Or what you will be able to keep.

Then go through all your paperwork, it's amazing how much you can shred/throw.

Then start on kitchen cupboards, not just food but any appliances, crockery, dishes etc you don't use.

Take regular trips to the charity shop/ have a garage sale, fb page etc.
Better out than hanging around and you get to see what you need to do easier.

Next, go through every drawer and cupboard be relentless ito what you keep or get rid of.

Must add my il's didn't do this and arrived at their small bungalow for the removal men to have to leave half of it in the garage.
They then spent a year tidying and making space. It cost them a fortune for removal company, when a man with a van would have done.

I haven't even thought about the garden and shed yet. No loft as it's an attic conversion inhabited by my ds who I think has kept every piece of junk he's had in the 20 years he's walked the earth. A loft would probably be easier.

I'm trying not to flit from room to room and have cleared a massive bookcase. Most books are in bags I sent for from the BHF.

I think next I'll pack all warmer weather clothing and shoes that I want to keep into suitcases as I won't be needing them until we've moved.

I'm so very tempted to order a massive skip but feel guilty that there's lots of decent stuff that might help people out via charity shops or donations. I don't have the time or energy to sell things individually.

Do you have the budget to rent a storage room for a month or two until you do your new place and get it right then you could gradually sell off the stuff you don't need?

Charity shops will collect if you call them. they can't take some things but furniture is no problem, apart from some sofas.
If you want to sell, have you considered fb?

Some charity shops take sofas and big furniture but wait times for collection might be a month.

You have my sympathy, I'm drowning in stuff and immobilised by it.

Following for tips.

Storage is a possibility whilst I find out what I can comfortably take with me but I'd be wary about whether I'd end up never getting around to sorting it.

I've also got to try to pace myself as I have ME and if I do too much I risk being bedridden again.

Also, I contacted two charity shops last week and neither do collections. I'm hoping that the BHF will, especially as I have several of their bags already full and clogging up my living room.

Get a skip as there will def be lots of stuff that isn’t suitable for charity shops, be ruthless.

If you are culling items such as towels, duvets, and items like that, your local animal rescue would happily take them.

Also look for charities that take furniture to give away. There is one near us called BESOM and I know they are in other places to. They will collected unwanted furniture as long as it is in decent condition. They don't sell it but give it to people who are referred to them such as people out of abusive relationships who have a home but no furniture. We have given loads of furniture to them which they collected.

We did this ten years ago. I imagine now Facebook is the way to go, but we used freecycle - it's amazing what people will take if it's free. Gumtree maybe?

I got my husband to sort my stuff. I trusted him to keep the right stuff. If he didn't, whatever he got rid of, I haven't missed.

I wish we'd been more ruthless.

Our local tip (or recycling centre as its now called) has a section for furniture, I got rid of my old sofa this way. Maybe your local tip does something similar?

We have done this gradually as we have downsized, but not as drastically as you are doing! I think start with the really big items that are definitely not going to go in the new place - extra beds, wardrobes, tables etc. They are relatively easy to get rid of and at least once they are gone you will feel you are getting somewhere. I found the family stuff and all my lovely clutter so difficult to get rid of and in the end we just took it with us to see what would go best in the new place. So our new build looks a bit like a Victorian house has squeezed into it with our huge mirrors and old furniture, but I actually like all my old stuff around me and wouldn't have wanted to go out and buy new or throw away to be ruthless. We have a garage though, so stored stuff in there until we were ready to go through it and that was a huge help.

Stick things on freegle and freecycle.
List them singly not as a job lot. Add a photo and measurements if it is large. You will get lots of replies or maybe none. Of the lots of replies, sift out the ones that are cheeky, impolite or who have obviously not read the description properly, and give to someone polite who can collect quickly.

A place for everything? Decide how much space you have for something. Go through the items you have and keep the ones you need. Anything left over and doesn't fit in that space goes. Easy if it is a bookcase.

I've made good progress today. More bags of books and clothes sorted ready to go. Also have a collection of furniture booked with BHF for a couple of weeks time.

I wish I'd got the time and energy to list things and sell them but I really haven't. I'm obviously keeping some sentimental things even though I don't know where they'll go, I'm just not ready to ditch everything right now.

Well done OP. If you have a lot of stuff to take to a charity shop and you drive, it might be worth ringing up and asking if you can park at the back of the shop to drop the boxes off. They may want hangers and plastic bags too, if you have them spare.

the answer to the question upthread is that if you have less space you just have to have less stuff. My house has one run of wardrobes and two chests of drawers for clothing storage, plus a coat rack. So no more clothes than that.

fairly easy as I hate clothes shopping, and like most people have far more than I need. So am gradually wearing stuff out and chucking it. Haven't bought any new clothes except socks and underwear for two years. It's great.