Ideas For Cleaning Out Your Home For A Move

At some point when my 2 kids were much younger we moved from a 3000 square foot home to an 8200 square foot home.  I was working.  I was dealing with 2 young kids and I paid no attention to what was moved from one home to the other.  About a year after we moved I finally took a look at what was moved into a storage room above our garage.  Wow – that was horrifying and eye-opening.  Evidently we moved things I didn’t even know we owned.  It was just bad.  And it took me a long time to empty out that room and organize it so I could find anything.  The other horrifying thing that I will admit – I paid to have expired food moved.  I swore the next time I moved I would not make these same mistakes.  And you can get away with these mistakes when you are buying a larger home (even though I wouldn’t recommend it).  You can’t get away with the same mistakes when you are going the other direction.  So as soon as I knew it was inevitable that our home was getting sold, I started the clean-out process and I learned a lot along the way.  The most important thing I learned is that you do not have to hire someone to do this for you and if you have the time, you can do it for little to no cost.  I live in Arlington, VA so some of the recommendations I have below are specific to where I live, but with some research you can find resources available in your jurisdiction too.

Here is what I did:

1. Anything that was in good shape and I thought someone could use went on Freecycle. Freecycle is a website that allows you post items for free and that information goes out to anyone who has signed up for the site in your local area.  I was able to give away small furniture, toys, games, gardening tools, holiday decorations and more. (Side Note:  for holiday decorations, I paid attention to what I used each holiday – once I knew I was moving – and what just stayed in a storage room.  If it didn’t go up in or around our house, it was set aside to go on Freecycle.  If you have the time, it’s a great way to figure out exactly what you use without trying to guess what actually goes up or not).  For Freecycle I figured out how to group items together and give them away as “sets” rather than do everything as an individual item.  For example, all 11 gardening tools went as a set.  All science related toys went as a set.  All of the unused tile in our house went as a set.  I did start to notice that the same people were taking related items when I was advertising them separately so it’s more efficient for everyone if you can group items together in my opinion.  If you prefer to sell items, there are plenty of sites for that like Facebook Marketplace and Nextdoor.
2. I used a donation organization that will pick up items. Green Drop is the one I used, but there are others.  I am sure I did many donations to them during the time I knew I was moving.  If I got an email saying they were going to be in the area, I’d set up a time for them to come for a pick up.  A lot of kitchen items, toys, games, lamps, clothing, shoes and more went to them and all I had to do was get it to the end of my driveway.  Very similar to Freecycle, but just allowed me to get a large number of items out at one time.
3. Arlington County Main Library will let you donate books, but only 2 bags per day. I had 12 bags so took me a little while to get all of that donated.  I did donate books to Green Drop, but if Green Drop wasn’t going to be in my area and I needed books out of the house, I chose to donate at the library.
4. Arlington County will pick up metal and electronics as no additional cost on your trash day. We had 30 year old stereos, old cable boxes, etc.  Anything that was metal or electronic that I didn’t think anyone would want or no longer worked went into those pick-ups.
5. Arlington County will take paint at a specific drop off point. It took me 2 weekends to get all of my extra paint over to them, but they took the more than 30 cans of paint we somehow had in our basement at no cost to me.
6. Arlington County trash will take any furniture. I only used that a couple of times, but it is very helpful.
7. I had a lot of tools, nails, so many random items that belonged to my ex-husband and he didn’t want them anymore. My neighbor happened to be having construction done on their house.  I walked over there one day, asked for whoever was in charge and offered all of the tools to him.  He and his crew took them.
8. My niece happened to be moving at the same time I was moving. They had a storage pod dropped at my house, came by the next day and moved every piece of furniture I was not going to move and that they thought they could use.  That was amazing!  So if you can find someone who is just starting out, let them help you clear your home.
9. I had one son that was moving into a furnished apartment so he didn’t need much, but he did need everything for his bathroom so I packed up everything in one of our bathrooms and that was everything he needed for his room. Some throw pillows and other random things were also moved to his apartment.
10. I used dumpster bags at the end. I purchased 2 from Home Depot.  I think I paid about $300 total to have then hauled away by the dumpster bag company.  Everything that went into those bags were items that no one was going to want/need or at least I didn’t think anyone would want them.  This was one of the last things I did after I knew the house was sold so it really was just everything left over from my other cleaning out.
11. As you probably know, when you sell your furniture you get very little for it – if it even sells. I had some pieces of furniture that really only worked in a house that size including a 12’ dining room table with 12 chairs.  I went through and figured out what I was willing to leave for the new owners.  They ended up being thrilled to not have to furnish the entire home right away and I got to leave a lot of items that probably would never have sold anyway – including all of the outdoor/pool furniture.  It’s always worth asking the new owner if they want something that you are not interested in moving; especially if it is in perfect condition.
12. At the end we used a company that does empty the remaining contents of your home and tries to sell it. If they can’t sell it, it is donated/disposed of correctly.  We did have to pay some amount for that service and then were able to cover our costs with what they sold.  By the time this happened, we were down to just furniture and exercise equipment.  One thing to note here:  I had a lot of crystal glasses and a complete set of china I had inherited long ago.  They would never have sold.  I thought about it for a long time and made the decision to keep those items.  In the end it was maybe 4 small boxes of items that are now in my attic space.  I guess that’s another thing I would recommend – if you can’t decide and it isn’t that much space, you can always hold onto it and make the decision at a later date.

There are other wonderful organizations out there who are more than happy to take items off your hands.  One I didn’t mention is Phoenix Bikes in Arlington.  I had 3 bikes that had very little usage and were well known brands.  They don’t take all bikes for good reasons.  They do a lot for the community so I was more than happy to donate the bikes rather than try to sell them.

It took a lot of hours to do everything I did, the way I chose to do it.  Not everyone has the time nor the desire to empty their home this way, but hopefully this helps as you think about how you are going to tackle what seems like an almost impossible task!  There are still moments now where I think about what it took to empty out that house and that I actually did do it, because there were days when I never thought it would happen!