Newsletters

3 Steps to Decluttering Your Home for a Garage Sale

Written by

Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director at AT Media
Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director at AT Media
For more than 10 years, I've led Apartment Therapy's real home content, producing thousands of house tours from around the world. Currently, I live in my maximalist dream home in New Orleans, Louisiana, with my partner, a perfect dog, and a cute cat.
updated Jun 5, 2019
comments
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Post Image
See More Images
(Image credit: The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces)

Where do you begin when it comes to cleaning out your home in preparation for finding stuff to sell at a garage sale? Well it turns out it’s pretty similar to regularly decluttering your home; only after you’ve combed through drawers and closets, you’ll be evaluating if there’s anything you can make a little dough on.

This weekend, declutter, evaluate and set aside:


1. Declutter
You’re going to start looking for things to sell in a garage sale in the same way you would if you were aiming to declutter your house. This is about getting rid of the stuff you no longer need and seeing if you can make a bit of dough from it. Check out these posts on tips for decluttering, including methods for letting go of items that you might not need but are still attached to:

2. Evaluate
Next you want to evaluate from your pile of recently decluttered items what the best sellers are going to be. Items like furniture, garden tools, power tools, household items (like dishes), sporting equipment, bicycles, and children’s clothes, books and toys tend to do really well at garage sales.

Are these the only things you should try selling if you decide to hold a garage sale? Of course not! Doesn’t hurt to try something else, right? But it will help in thinking about marketing and laying your garage sale out to know what your best sellers might be. While you’re going through your stuff, also consider setting aside any items you might want to just give away for free — this is a common tactic to pulling in folks to your garage sale.

3.
Set aside Find a place in your home you can set aside your items for the sale. Those in tiny homes just might not be able to find a big enough place, but it you’ve got the room, distancing yourself from the items will help make it easier to see them go on sale day. And if you want to get ahead, organize your items by category so pricing is easier.

A few more things to think about:


Valuable, unwanted items should be sold somewhere else

As someone pointed out in the comments of the
last garage sale post, you aren’t going to get a ton of what you paid for a piece at a garage sale, where folks are often looking for a deal. Valuable items you find around the house you no longer have a need for might be served better with online sales.


Check for recalls Especially with children’s toys, you might want to research the product online to see if it’s been a part of any consumer safety recalls, so you don’t end up selling unsafe products to anyone.


What have you found to be some of the best sellers at garage and yard sales? What are you always on the hunt for when you shop for deals at garage sales? Share in the comments below!


See More Images
(Image credit: Janel Laban)

Visit the Guide to the Perfect Summer main page for links to all of the posts published so far or sign up to have them delivered directly to you each weekend.

Filed in:
Cleaning