Preparing to downsize and move into a new home is an ideal time to assess your belongings. To avoid packing more than you need, decide what can be tossed, donated, or sold, especially when moving to a smaller space. The team from Modernize shares tips for items to consider parting with before you move to your new home. For more moving advice, be sure to follow Lennar Homes on Facebook and share in the comments your favorite packing tips!
Whether you’re moving to a smaller space now that the kids have moved out or you just want to reclaim a little room in your home, downsizing your belongings offers a chance to free yourself from all the items you never use. Meanwhile, dejunking makes your new abode seem a lot more luxurious. If you’re looking to move to a smaller place soon, here are six things you can toss right away.
Kitchen Gadgets
Seriously, when was the last time your ice cream maker did anything besides gather dust? The apple corers and roasting pans of the world take up a lot of spare room in cabinets—which is space that you just don’t have when you’re downsizing. Many kitchen gadgets perform specialized tasks that can be easily accomplished by another item. For instance, unless you’re making stir fry every night, you can probably trade the wok for a large frying pan. Likewise, a popcorn maker or rice steamer are both easily replaced with an ordinary pot. A good rule of thumb is if you haven’t used it in six months, get rid of it. Be ruthless.
Holiday Decorations
Sure, some Christmas decorations hold a lot of sentimental value, but some of them are just dust collectors! These items are typically made fairly cheaply and thus easily become tattered, tangled, and broken. Decluttering experts advise that we typically hold onto this stuff for the memories—holiday ornaments and family mementos may represent important moments from our past. But getting rid of this stuff doesn’t delete the memories from your mind, so as much as you can, try to get rid of worn or unused sentimental items. After all, if we learned anything from Charlie Brown, it’s that the holiday spirit resides in your heart, not in your decorations.
Souvenirs
Face it, your I love New York shot glass isn’t doing your home decor any favors. This is the era of smartphones, cameras, and social media. We have plenty of digital spaces to preserve memories, so it’s not really necessary to hang on to those cheap souvenirs you pick up at the hotel gift shop on a whim. Offload this stuff and you’ll likely see the improvement in your home’s taste level, as well as clearing off some room on your new mantel or desk some more unique treasures.
Sports Equipment and Other Accessories for Hobbies
Your kids have long outgrown their baseball phase, but for some reason you still have all the bats and gloves—just in case they suddenly transform into a pro ball player. Or maybe you got an itch to take up golf. You bought the clubs and played one time—before shutting the equipment in a closet, never to see the light of day again. Hobbyists often pick up activities for a short period of time. You throw yourself into your newest obsession, picking up all the accoutrement along the way. And then you get tired and move on to the next thing, but can’t seem to throw the old stuff away. “Maybe I’ll pick up kayaking again,” you say. As difficult as it may be to pitch these possessions, they’re really just taking up space if you don’t take them out. Instead, keep a small memento—your first golf ball, say—and drop the rest in the donation pile.
Leftovers from Home Repair Projects
Garages, attics, and basements are notorious hoarding grounds for the things we think we’ll need one day. There’s the half-empty can of paint you kept for wall paint touchups, or the extra boards left from a home improvement project that you finished so long ago you can’t even remember what you used it for. Stuff like this makes an obvious candidate for the purge—especially if storage space is at a premium in your new abode.
Anything That Doesn’t Fit in Your New Space
This is an obvious one, but it deserves a mention anyway. Your downsized home or apartment may not need a palatial sleigh bed or a full loveseat and sofa. You’ll want to consider how everything fits in the new space: rugs, window treatments, wall decorations—you may have to give up many items. But if you have fewer bedrooms in your new spot, moving to a smaller spot offers an opportunity to mix up your design and reorganize your rooms to fit your new, leaner decorating scheme. Change is always hard, but it opens up new avenues and opportunities—as long as you can learn to let go of some of the old stuff!
