Month: August 2019

Moving home has got to be one of the most stressful events you will face in your adult life. From the moment you pack the first item in a box, your life is turned upside down. Organising movers, cleaners and essential deliveries can feel like a balancing act. But the good news is there are steps you can take to minimise your stress.

The key to a stress-free move is planning. Once you have a plan in place, you’ll know that everything is going to progress smoothly. And if something unexpected happens, you’ll be better placed to handle it because everything else will be under control. Here are our top tips for keeping stress to a minimum and making sure your move goes smoothly.

1. Accept that it’s a stressful process

While we’d all love for moving to be a fun experience, the upheaval is always going to come with an element of stress. Make peace with the fact that moving house is stressful and then commit to doing everything you can to make it go smoothly. If you’re losing sleep over things that might never even happen, you’re only going to find moving house even harder.

2. Declutter

Do you still have that one box filled with odds and ends from the last time you moved? Moving items that you no longer need is a futile task. Start the moving process by having a declutter. Donate items that you no longer want or need and then try to recycle everything else. If there are items that you don’t really need but you don’t want to get rid of just yet, consider self storage as an interim solution.

3. Organise and pack

Try to pack your items by room and always mark what is in the box before sealing it. When the time comes to unpack your boxes, you will know exactly where everything is and where it needs to be. By organising as you go, you can make light work of unpacking as you won’t be sorting through things at the other end. This can be a great opportunity to declutter if you haven’t already done so.

4. Put items in storage

If you’re downsizing to a smaller place, there is no sense in moving all of your possessions straight away. Get a self storage unit so that you can get non-essential items out of the way while you get settled. Once you have a better idea of how much storage space you have, you can either move things out of your storage unit, or keep the storage unit so that your home doesn’t become too cluttered.

5. Hire professionals

Professional movers will make life so much easier. They will handle all of the heavy lifting and transportation. No more hiring a van and asking friends and family to help you move heavy boxes. With professional movers, such as our man & van service in Chipping Norton, you can sit back and relax on moving day. This will also mean you can get started unpacking straight away as you won’t be exhausted from moving.

6. Pack an “essentials” bag

When you’re moving house, you’ll quickly get used to saying “where on earth is the…” On moving day, make your life a little less stressful by making up a bag of essentials that you can move from one house to the next. This might include tea bags, milk and your favourite mug. Or you might want to include some healthy snacks to keep hunger at bay. Also things like towels, washing up liquid, toilet paper and soap can be useful to have at both properties.

These are just some of the ways you can take some of the stress out of moving house. Remember that the stress won’t last forever and you will soon be settled into your new home.

If you’re feeling cramped in your current environment, you might start dreaming about moving to a bigger home or even building an extension. The good news is that there are plenty of steps you can take before any kind of drastic measures. From being selective with your possessions to putting seldom used items in storage, there’s always something you can do to make your home feel more spacious and inviting.

Here are our top five tips for keeping the clutter under control and discovering more space in your existing home.

Choose multi-tasking furniture

Think about all the wasted space in your home. When you’re a child, the space under the bed is just where the monsters hide, but when you’re a grown up, it’s storage space waiting to be discovered. Using under-bed storage boxes, you can hide away items which are rarely used. You could also store bedding, towels and anything that is cluttering up space in your home. Multi-tasking furniture with clever storage solutions will help you to hide things away when they aren’t needed. Storage ottomans and even storage sofas can help to uncover plenty of space in your home.

Cut the clutter

Marie Kondo recently popularised the idea of decluttering on a mass scale. While you don’t have to go quite as extreme as some of her suggestions, there may be ways you can cut back on the clutter in your life. Clear out your wardrobe to get rid of items you no longer wear. Be honest about the items in your home and decide if you really need to hang on to them. If you can’t give them away without guilt, consider moving them into one of our Chipping Norton storage units or our Bromsgrove self storage facility. This will allow you to free up space in your home without getting rid of all of your possessions.

Think vertical

When we try to store items, we often think horizontally. Bookcases, drawers and cupboards keep everything at eye level or below. But what if you look up? Using hooks on walls and ceilings can help you to discover more storage space which cleans up floors and surfaces at eye level. Bookcases can be added around the top portion of your walls or peg boards can be used in the kitchen to store pots, pans and utensils. 

Store seasonally

You likely have a whole section of your wardrobe that you don’t touch in winter, and likewise in summer. By storing your items by season, you can free up space in your closet and streamline your morning routine. You could place items you won’t wear in vacuum bags to shrink them down to a more manageable size and then keep them under your bed. Or you could place these items in your self storage unit to clear out even more space in your home.

Update your rooms

When your children have left home, there’s really no need to keep their bedrooms exactly the same as when they left. Convert old bedrooms into a multi-use guest room. A trundle bed will give you versatile options for when visitors come to stay, while also freeing up space in your home. Think about what you’ve always wanted to do with the extra space. It could become a home office, a craft and hobby room, or even a home gym. This is one way a storage unit can be particularly helpful for clearing out the clutter.