4 Things I Decluttered After Moving into a New Home

I purposefully used my family’s interstate move to take stock of every one of our belongings. I didn’t want to take up valuable and costly moving truck space transporting items that we no longer needed or didn’t want. 

I also tried to picture the clean slate of our new home when deciding what to leave behind. For instance, I chose not to bring old, stained, or torn towels and linens, and I tossed our toilet brushes because I wanted to start over without items that were too dirty or cheap to move. 

Once we moved and I began unpacking (the fun part!), I was shocked by how many things I couldn’t believe I’d carted to Tennessee with us. A whole fresh round of decluttering ensued. While I feel somewhat silly for moving items that we ended up not keeping, I am thankful for every round of decluttering that moving has afforded. Of course, actually living in our new space lends a new perspective to what we can let go of with impunity. 

I took full advantage of this opportunity to thin out and simplify our belongings even further. Here are the things I decluttered as we unpacked: 

Hanging up items as you’re filling up your closet feels different than taking items down and putting them in a box. My mindset shifted from asking myself what I could get rid of to what I wanted to keep and I was able to pick out many more items that could go on to other homes. Additionally, I re-folded every single item of clothing that was going in my dresser. Doing this allowed me to see how many gray shirts I had, for instance, and made it abundantly clear what excess I could trim. The same applied to my children’s clothes, which I also deliberately re-folded and assessed as I set us up in our new place. In all, I filled several bags of clothing to donate. 

I had somewhat of an idea about how I wanted to arrange our new home, but it wasn’t until we had our furniture in place that it became clear what would work in the new and different layout and what wouldn’t. For instance, I was able to get rid of one of our sofa tables because I needed to replace it with cubbies for storage. Similarly, some decor became unnecessary or I realized that I didn’t want to hang it again, so I let it go. 

Although I emptied our entire linen closet before packing it, I still ended up with too many towels, sheets, and other bedding to fit in our new linen closet. Furthermore, I was able to get rid of the bedding we’d had in this new place before we moved. Once all the transitions were behind us, I was able to take a clear-eyed look at everything we had in the bedding category and keep only what we truly needed for our realistic everyday and guest situations. 

Much like what happened when unpacking into our new closets, filling up our kitchen cupboards enabled us to see that certain items just didn’t have a place in our new kitchen. We were able to see with fresh eyes the things that we’d been so used to having around in our old home but that we didn’t have any reason to hang on to. 

The more distance and time we’ve put between our former life and our current one, the more apparent it has become what belongs with us in the present — and what doesn’t. Once again, decluttering proves to be an ongoing exercise and a mindset rather than an event.