Moving house is probably one of the most stressful processes to organise in our adult life. If you are moving abroad the process will start about three months before when you decide on a date and contact container shipping companies about shipping your goods. Deciding how much to take is a problem but many people who are moving abroad say, for a temporary contract, will choose to take the minimum of goods with them it they are going to furnished accommodation and then look to put some of the rest into storage. However, moving house whether just down the road or across the seas, is an opportunity to thin down your accumulated possessions. In fact it is often much easier when you are moving to get rid of things that you obviously don’t have a use for. Broken bikes, old toys, old sets of drawers are not going to move with you, so the sooner you begin to take untreasures to the tip the sooner you can get on with sorting your stuff to take with you.

Your moving companies will provide boxes or cartons for you and you can start a few days ahead putting things in you won’t need straightway. Try to put like with like together – ALL the things from the dining room cupboards in the same box, for example. It could take you weeks to sort things out if you mix up your packing.

If you are moving abroad the shipping company will usually come and professionally pack your things for you – for example, they will bubble wrap your furniture and white goods appropriate for putting in a container which you may fill on your own but may be sharing with someone else.

Before buying your stylish modern storage or get ready for you move to another house, make sure you have slimmed down your possessions to the essentials. There are a number of ways to do this:

1) Sell your surplus

We may well buy stuff we never got around to wearing or have equipment we don’t use any more (how many people still use their tent and camping gear once the children are grown up?) or have collected something for years and now have decided we want to do something else. You can sell your things like many other people on online shopping or trading sites such as eBay. You can take your items with some value to a local auction house, though it is worth having a collection valued and advice take before you sell.

2) Recycle your surplus

There are a number of online sites where you can advertise your things for swapping or for free collection- take a grip and don’t acquire more than you get rid of. Take goods to your local charity shops that will be very grateful for good quality goods and remember that other people will benefit from your gifts. Similarly you can take furniture and clothes to your local charity providing for the homeless- they will often come to collect your furniture, (though our local one won’t take furniture without a fire safety tag.) Things that are obsolete or broken should still be sorted for recycling at your local recycling centre – old computers or electronic goods will be recycled separately as will old batteries etc.

Anything you have left after this pruning will be possessions for which you will need suitable storage

One problem comes along with modern life, it seems. Even the most cash-strapped of us ends up with our houses full of stuff we are not quite sure what to do with and we can’t quite think of throwing away in case we might need it ten years in the future. I’m not talking about those folks that have an obsessive compulsive disorder about collecting and get so much stuff they have no living space left. but some of us are edging towards a problem of over acquisition.

Eventually spare rooms become no longer spare; garages no longer have cars but stuff in them. Many people’s first response is to buy storage to put everything in – cupboards, shelves, boxes, bags you suck air out of and put in the loft, trunks, tables with storage and pouffes with storage. This only puts off the problem until a bit later. AND the fantasy that you may want to use something later disappears when you can either never find it again or when you do find it has rusted and/or disintegrated.

If you have a too-much-stuff problem the first thing to do is to get rid of as much as you can before you invest in suitable storage.  If you have become so closely attached to all the things you have acquired you may well need to enlist help to sort through it as you are likely to fall at the first fence if left to yourself – after all, if it was you who accumulated it you aren’t suddenly going to be easily detached. Similarly your partner may not be the right one. Try your best friend, or in my case my sister who had this good idea of putting everything “possibly to go” in bin bags and leaving them there for a month and then making sure they disappeared. This cooling off period did allow me to rescue one or two treasures!

One of the thorny problems with storage in the garage is that in many cases the garage is so full of stuff that the car won’t fit in; one way of dealing with this is to get some very clever storage that will take the clutter off the floor and allow the car to be stored in the garage again! Here are some really good storage ideas for the garage:

Bike Racks – these are quite simple but extremely useful racks that lift the bicycles off the floor where they take up loads of room (and keep falling over) and hold them on the walls of the garage.

Garage shelving and Drawer systems – Garage shelving usually consists of flexible metal shelving of different widths and lengths that can be built to any height. Together with adjustable shelves these shelves are so very useful as they will fit neatly along the wall and hold either single items or other storage receptacles (boxes, bins etc). Drawer systems encompass those neat, usually plastic see-through drawers for smaller parts and tools.

Garage Racks and Hooks – these are a really good idea and some are designed to hold a range of tools and equipment including garden equipment and tools. These racks sit on the wall and make sure that the tools are easy to find (if you remember to put them back that is …..). There are racks made for a variety of purposes – for example made specifically for a number of smaller hand tools.

Utility rooms are usually quite small but they can be brilliantly organised with the right kind of storage solutions.

Wall storage shelving – the open storage shelving is flexible to design and build to hold the variety of things that need to be stored in utility rooms- which will often mean taking overflow from the kitchen too.

Ceiling clothes dryers – the traditional wood ceiling clothes dryer is making a comeback – and about time too given how useful it its –this can be fitted in a utility room or a kitchen but wherever it is fitted it will always be useful . (You can dry your herbs on it too).

Stacking recycling bins – recycling is fine but doesn’t it take up space whilst you are collecting it? Stacking bins are the answer- they take less floor space and keep the messy stuff looking tidy.

Pantry Storage – if you are lucky enough to have a small room you can use as a pantry then you will need suitable storage. One really good idea besides having fitted wall shelves of different widths is to have a mobile pantry unit – it can sit in front of your shelves and massively increase storage space by being able to be wheeled out of the way of the shelves when you need something behind it.  These mobile units will have plastic-coated baskets that slide into the unit allowing you to draw them out to remove your goods.