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Five Ways of Decluttering Before Christmas

Christmas is very much a prime-time when it comes to decluttering – with all the extra guests and presents you need to make room for, not to mention all the festive food and drink that usually goes hand in hand with the festive season.

Here Hamiltons Removals, who supply packing materials for customers in Norfolk, Suffolk and further afield, look at five key ways to make sure you have enough space when December 25 comes round, and how we can help you achieve that goal.

Clearing out the Spare Room

You may have guests staying or children coming home from university for the Christmas break. If so, you may need to stop using the guest room or their room as additional storage space so that they feel at home and comfortable during their stay.

Going Through the Kitchen Cupboards

How many items do you think will be in the back of your cupboards that you haven’t checked in a long time? Probably quite a lot will be passed their ‘use by’ date, never mind the ‘best before’. The same applies to your medicine cabinet.

Regardless, you will need as much space as possible for all the extra food that you are likely to buy at Christmas. So even things that are still good may need to be eaten up so that you have enough room in the fridge, freezer or kitchen cupboards.

The same also applies  goes for clothes. If there is anything you haven’t worn in the last 12 months, it might be time to think about giving it to a charity shop.

Your Personal Correspondence

This is less of an issue now that everything is digital, but even so. You don’t really need to keep all those bank statements, insurance documents and other letters longer than a year. Shred them (rather than just put them in the bin) on an annual basis. Keeping them for 12 months will enable you to compare your spending habits, but you shouldn’t need to keep them for any longer than that.

And, on a digital level, go through your inbox/deleted items/spam folders and get rid of anything you don’t need permanently. Also, get rid of any recorded TV programmes you haven’t watched in the past year. At the very least, this will help your PC and set-top box run a little faster and more smoothly.

Move the Furniture Around

There is good reason not to make the TV a focal point for all the seats. Think about making the tree (and the presents) the centre of attention instead. Turning your view away from the TV will also help you to think how to maximise the space in your living room (for example, sofas up against or near to the walls) for you, your guests and everything that will be going on.

Think Flexible Storage

Sofa beds rather than sofas will mean more people can ‘sleep over’. In addition, sofa beds will often let you store bed linen underneath. Divans with plenty of storage space are also a more practical choice than just two mattresses.

In the kitchen, expandable shelves, two-tier cutlery drawers, wineglass racks and many other storage solutions will help you to save space and declutter countertops, shelves and other cupboards.

Consider Self Storage

Self storage will help if you have any seasonal items that you don’t want to part with (for instance, summer clothes or sports gear) and will need again when the warmer weather returns. If you have any early Christmas presents that you don’t want children (or partners) to find before the big day, you could put these into storage at the same time, well out of the way of any inquisitive eyes.

If you need a secure self storage facility, Hamiltons’ has two in the heart of East Anglia – in Harleston and Aldeby, close to the Norfolk/Suffolk border. The former has a range of room sizes, while the latter has units that are suitable for larger items such as lawnmowers, bikes and caravans, which you won’t need until it gets warmer. Both sites combine easy access for users with high levels of security. For more details on our Safe N Stored sites, follow this link.

Packing Materials from Norfolk-based Hamiltons Removals

In a lot of cases, you will need top-quality packing materials for all the items you have decluttered – whether they are going in the loft, in the bin (as in the case of out-of-date food or cosmetics) to the charity shop or into self storage.

As well as our self storage facilities, Hamiltons Removals also supply a range of convenient packing materials from our base at Harleston on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. We have small, medium and large decluttering kits available from our online shop.

Each of the kits includes medium and large boxes, tape, bubblewrap, marker pens and inventory sheets so you can keep track of what has gone where.


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