When we were putting our lovely little terraced home up for sale, I always thought it looked pretty put-together. We were in the midst of the parenting trenches with our first daughter, so it was a busy family home, and it felt warm and welcoming, but like everyone, we had accumulated a fair share of clutter in our 10 years in foggy London town.
When it came to getting it ready for photos (you can see a few of these below) and the open-house viewings that our genius estate agent recommended, we had a bit of a reality check. Once I started properly looking into how to declutter to sell your home fast and the key areas you need to declutter before putting your house on the market, it quickly became clear that my usual quick tidy might not cut it. After all, we needed to get the painful process over as quickly as we could, and it felt like a minimal investment that would more than likely pay off.
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Once we’d decided to rent a van, we blocked out a full day to get the house ready. I don’t just mean surface-level tidy, but a proper reset.
The aim was simple: make it feel calm, spacious and easy to walk into. That meant being honest about things that had crept in over time in the most cluttered places in our home, like the toys that migrate into every room, wardrobes doing a lot of heavy lifting, “sort it out later” areas and the post accumulation in the hall and kitchen.
Normally, I’d be tempted to shuffle things around, shove things in cupboards and hope for the best, but this time, we knew that wouldn’t work, especially knowing buyers tend to open cupboards and peek into every corner. I know I do!
I chose things that we didn’t need every day to pack in boxes. This was actually a blessing when we ended up packing for the move, as we’d already done a good amount of sorting prior to it.
So we booked the van for the day (not as expensive as you might think) and used it as off-site storage, parking it a few streets away when it was loaded up! And honestly, it worked so well, it’s a decision we still feel a little smug about.
The van strategy gave us permission to be properly ruthless as we could just chuck the clutter out of the house altogether, instead of endlessly moving things from room to room.
OK, you might say it didn’t solve the clutter build-up we had, but packing it all up did help us hone in on it, and during this process, we naturally whittled it down as we packed the van up.
Surfaces were then clear, not just tidy, rooms felt noticeably bigger (a huge plus for a pokey terrace), and every room looked that little bit more styled.
When the photos were taken, the difference was immediate. Everything looked far more put-together, but the win really came on our open house viewing day.
Because we’d already boxed up all the everyday clutter, there was no last-minute scramble before people arrived, except for a quick cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom. It was easy to just rent the van again for the day, put the boxes in and head out, knowing the house was neat and tidy.
Without all our usual ‘stuff’ hanging around, the house didn’t feel too like our home anymore, but in a good way. There was still personality with pictures and ornaments on open shelving, but it felt neutral and probably easier for someone else to picture themselves living there.
Now, renting a van might seem over the top (we were in a bit of a pickle, ok!), but it made such a difference, not just to how the house looked but to how easy it was to manage the viewing day.
And it really paid off as we had six offers the evening of the open house! And I firmly believe it was down to this idea.
Now I completely get that moving half your house out for the day and into a van isn’t for everyone. It did feel a little extra, even as I was doing it. And there are ways to hide clutter within the constraints of your home without it turning into a full-on ‘Monica-cupboard’ situation (you know the one).
A buyer doesn’t expect perfection, so it’s less about hiding every single thing away but more about controlling what’s visible with clever storage solutions. The key is to be intentional about it, so here’s what you can do and use to house everyday clutter, if a van is a no-go:
- Use clutter buckets, clever baskets and lidded storage to group everyday items so they look styled rather than shoved away. I love these roomy lidded baskets from H&M as they will go with any home’s decor, and you can buy a number of sizes, so they look more intentional in a space. And these stylish seagrass baskets come in various sizes too, starting from £8.99 at Amazon.
- Create one designated holding zone, like a cupboard or drawer, rather than spreading clutter across every room. I have so many of these clear organisers, £15.97 at Amazon, dotted around our house, for the busiest of cupboards and drawers.
- Edit what’s on show, especially on surfaces like kitchen worktops and bedside tables.
- Use neat dividers and organisers inside drawers (these genius adjustable dividers, £16.99 at Amazon are perfect for any size drawer) and cupboards (these inserts, £18.99 at Amazon make everything look much neater) so if buyers do open them (and they will), everything still looks organised rather than crammed in. This genius undersink storage solution is also well worth investing in.
My favourite clutter-busting essentials
Lifewit
25pcs Drawer Organiser Set
woodluv
Extra-large storage box with lid
Flytianmy
40pcs adjustable drawer dividers
H&M
Extra-large handmade seagrass storage basket
AARAINBOW
Wall Hanging Cotton Baskets
Dunelm
Global Herringbone Underbed Storage Box
Packing up our everyday clutter and storing it in a van might not be the most conventional approach, but it worked an absolute treat.
Our home felt calmer, looked more spacious and was so much easier to keep that way for the run-up to selling our house. And in the end, it did exactly what we needed it to. It let our home shine, and then the offers came flooding in.
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