Decluttering your home: the hard part is knowing where it all goes

Start with the exits, not the cupboards

Most decluttering advice is about deciding: does this spark joy, have I used it in a year, would I buy it again. Those questions are useful, but they aren't usually where people get stuck. People get stuck at the front door, with three bin bags of clothes, a box of chipped mugs, a broken printer and an armchair that is too good to throw away and too big to fit in the car.

On the Isle of Wight that last step has more rules than people expect. The tips need a booked slot. Charity shops take some furniture and not others. The council's bulky collection is cheap per item but won't come into the house. If you don't know this before you start, the result is a half-emptied room and a hallway full of things waiting for a plan.

So start with a list of exits, the way you would plan a house move, and book the first ones before you begin. A date in the diary does more for a declutter than any amount of motivation.

A method that survives a weekend

There is no shortage of decluttering systems. This one is plain, and it is built around the exits.

Five boxes, labelled. Keep, sell, give, recycle, rubbish. Everything you pick up goes into one of them, and nothing goes back on the shelf "for now". A sixth box for "not sure" is fine, as long as it is sealed and dated and you open it again in three months.

One room, or one part of a room, at a time. Finish it before you move on, including carrying the boxes out. A whole house half done is more discouraging than one room finished.

Start with the rooms that matter least. The bathroom cabinet, the hall cupboard, the garage and the shed are full of things you can decide about in a second: out-of-date medicines, dried-up paint, odd screws, three broken umbrellas. That builds momentum. Bedrooms and wardrobes come next. Photographs, letters, children's drawings and anything that belonged to someone who has died come last, when you've had practice at deciding and the house already feels lighter.

Set a time limit. Two or three hours at a stretch is plenty. By the end of a long day of sorting, everything starts to look either precious or worthless, and neither is a good basis for a decision.

Empty the boxes the same day if you can. The sell box is the exception: give it a deadline. If it hasn't sold in a month, it moves to the give box.

Where each thing can go on the Island

This is the part most guides skip. The Isle of Wight has a good network of reuse charities, two tips and a council bulky service, but each has its own rules.

A few details are worth knowing before you load the car.

Charities that collect

The council's own list of Island reuse organisations names three that deal in furniture. Storeroom2010 is an independent furniture reuse charity at 1 Mariners Way, Cowes, which helps disadvantaged families furnish their homes cheaply and can collect. The British Heart Foundation Home Store at 18a High Street, Newport, takes furniture and electricals and offers free collection. And Mountbatten, whose shops fund end-of-life and bereavement care for Islanders, collects furniture by arrangement with its warehouse at Riverway in Newport.

Every one of these will turn down items that are damaged or that they can't legally sell. Mountbatten's list of things it won't accept includes used mattresses, pillows and quilts, cookers, microwaves, oil heaters, child car seats and anything broken. Ring before you carry anything heavy.

The fire safety label

Upholstered furniture for resale must carry a label showing it meets the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988. That applies to the charities above and to the council's free reuse collection, which picks up undamaged, working furniture and items such as TVs at no charge, provided sofas and armchairs have current fire labels. Before you start, check under the cushions and along the base of anything upholstered. If the label has been cut off, the piece is almost certainly heading for disposal rather than reuse, and that changes your plan.

A sofa that can't be reused is not ordinary rubbish either. Government guidance says upholstered domestic seating may contain persistent organic pollutants and must be incinerated rather than landfilled.

The tip and its reuse points

The Island has two household waste recycling centres: Lynnbottom on Briddlesford Road, Newport, open every day except Christmas Day, and Afton Marsh near Freshwater, open Saturday to Monday only. Every visit has to be booked in a 15-minute slot, one per household per day, and staff can't help you unload. Both have Think Before You Throw reuse points for furniture, decorations and working electricals in usable condition.

If you need several trips, book them at the start of the declutter. It is a good way of setting the deadline.

The council's bulky waste collection

For a few big items that nobody wants, the council's bulky service can be good value, as long as you can get them outside.

The catch is in the terms and conditions. The crew won't come inside, so you or a helper have to carry everything out by 7am. And the list of things the service won't take is long: kitchen units and sinks, bathroom suites, doors and windows, wood, mirrors and glass, radiators, fence panels, pianos and, in the council's words, "any other item which is not furniture or a kitchen appliance". Each area gets one collection day a week: Tuesday for Newport and West Cowes, Wednesday for Ryde and East Cowes, Thursday for Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor, and Friday for the West Wight.

Selling: worth it for some things

Selling is the exit that most often stalls. Photographing, listing, answering messages and waiting in for buyers who don't turn up all take time. As a rough rule, sell the things that are worth an evening of your effort: good furniture from known makers, tools, bikes, electricals in working order, anything collectable. Everything else is usually better given away the same week.

Set a deadline for the sell box when you start. If it hasn't gone by then, it goes to a charity, which gets the benefit, and you get the space.

Before you throw it away, can it be fixed?

A broken lamp, a toaster with a dodgy switch or a favourite coat with a torn lining doesn't have to be the end. The Isle of Wight Repair Café has run free monthly sessions at Quay Arts in Newport, where volunteers fix items and show you how to do it yourself. Check their current dates before you go.

Clearing a parent's home, or downsizing your own

On the Isle of Wight this kind of declutter is common. In the 2021 Census, 29.2% of Island residents were 65 or over, against 18.3% for England, and the Island's median age is 51. A lot of Island decluttering is someone moving into a smaller home, or a family emptying the house of someone who has died. If that is your situation, our guide to clearing a parent's home on the Isle of Wight covers probate, council tax and the order to do things in.

The method above still works, but the order matters more. Do the practical rooms first and leave the personal things until the end, when there is more time and more space. Keep one box per family member for the things they want, and let them take it away rather than store it. Look out for paperwork that matters, such as wills, deeds, bank statements and pension letters, and put it somewhere safe before anyone starts clearing. And don't be afraid to take it slowly: there is rarely a reason why the sentimental part of a clearance has to happen on the same weekend as the garage.

When it is more than one person can manage, our house clearance service handles the lifting and the sorting, and we set aside usable furniture and household items for reuse rather than sending everything to the tip. If you only need the big pieces moving, furniture removal covers single items, and a garage clearance or loft clearance deals with the spaces that usually hold the most.

If a home has become hard to live in because of the amount of stuff, that is a different situation from decluttering, and it needs a different approach. Our guide to the health hazards of hoarding explains why, and our hoarding clean-up service works at the pace of the person whose home it is.

Keeping it clear afterwards

The house you've just cleared fills up again the same way it filled up the first time: one thing at a time. A few habits help.

• One in, one out for clothes, shoes, books and kitchen gadgets.
• A permanent give bag in a wardrobe, which goes to a charity shop whenever it's full.
• Deal with post on the day it arrives. Paper is the clutter that grows fastest.
• Don't buy storage first. Boxes and shelving make it easier to keep things you don't need. Clear first, then see what storage you still want.

Most of all, keep the exits you found. Once you know which charity collects, which day the bulky service visits your street and how to book the tip, the next clear-out is a much smaller job.

Written by

Michael Shaw

Michael looks after marketing at Isle of Wight Rubbish Removal and has worked in rubbish removal full-time in the past.

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