Now that we have started packing more of our stuff, it becomes a bit of a mindset. Everything you see gets evaluated (and often over and over again). Should it stay or should it go? Do we need it in the next few weeks? What size box should it go into? But it’s the first question we keep circling back to.
As we are moving to a place that is smaller than our current house, we had already figured that perhaps we would keep some things in boxes, even have a bit of a storage area for things that aren’t needed until we find a new permanent home in Portugal. Even the possibility of renting some storage space came up.
Less is more
As we are starting to puzzle together a workable layout of our bedrooms and living space, more and more often we came to the conclusion we simply have too much stuff.
As we have written about previously, we have already been decluttering by gifting unwanted items using Freegle. However, these were often smaller items. So while a decluttering was most definitely useful, it only saves you a few boxes.
A few items can make a big impact
To make a real difference, we have to make some more rigorous choices. We had a very large corner sofa that folds out into a guest bed. It was as good as new, hardly ever used. It felt wasteful to get rid of it. However, it wasn’t that comfortable, especially for sleeping. And it took up so much space as well. We put it up for sale at a reasonable price and within a few days we managed to get rid of it.
We also had a large IKEA wardrobe. It wasn’t one of the fancier ones as it was mainly used to have some extra space. It was also a complete pain to take apart and put back together. With our new place having a lot of built-in wardrobes, we would probably end up having to store it anyway. That too was sold.
From our campervan we had an extra mattress. Since the original one wasn’t that comfortable and also didn’t quite fit as well, making it not lay completely flat (perhaps the two issues have a little bit to do with one another), we had replaced that with a nicer mattress. That left us with a spare mattress. While useful for guests, it is also an awkward and bulky item to store somewhere when not in use. The market for second hand mattresses is full of supply and very short on demand. So, selling it would be pretty much pointless. That one went for free to people who didn’t have much of anything.
More to go…?
We still have something we are considering getting rid of. Our dryer seems to be having some issues. Whether it is a filter that we can’t seem to locate or whether there is a more structural issue, we don’t know yet. Besides, do we even need a dryer in Portugal?
As our decluttering in general will be an ongoing effort, it has been good to make some of these bigger decisions. Figuring out how to organise all of our stuff in our new place suddenly seems a lot less complicated.