There are lots of reasons why it could be really useful for you to move some, or even most, of your belongings out of your home for a while. The following article is going to explore some of the great things you could be doing with your home if you only had the space to do them!
There are all sorts of reasons why putting some or all of your belongings into storage could be very helpful to you if you’re moving home.
Large pieces of dark furniture might be important to you, maybe they’ve been handed down to you, possibly you’ve paid a lot of money for them and that’s absolutely fine. But, when it comes to getting the best possible price for your property these items may be working against you, anything that absorbs light will have a tendency to darken the interior of your home.
Also the more furniture you’ve got in a room, any room, the smaller it will look, it’s the way our brains work, you simply can’t get away from that.
Think about potential buyers, they’re hoping to enter a house and look around and be thinking to themselves “gosh, look at how bright and airy it is in here, and spacious too.” If they’re wandering through your lounge thinking “hmm, it’s a bit dark in here and it’s smaller than I thought it’d be” then you are going to struggle to sell to them.
Solution? Let Philip Marks Removals come around to your home and move these items into our secure storage facility for you.
We are going to take really good care of your stuff, blanket wrapping it for both transit and storage. We have an excellent track record when it comes to taking really good care of every item of furniture that we handle. So phone us up, tell us what you need storing out of the way and we’ll come and move it out, store it, take super good care of it and then, when you’ve sold up and are heading towards your new home we can move it in there for you, easy!
Now, even if you're moving into a place that’s the same size, or bigger, than the one you’re selling, this can be a good idea to help with the sale. But if you’re moving into a place that’s smaller than your current home (i.e. downsizing) then it really does start to become a no-brainer.
Putting larger items into storage with us means that when you do move into your new, smaller dwelling you can take stock of your new space and take some time to think about how many of your larger items you want brought in and where they are going to go, Then, at a time that suits you, we can bring them all over and carefully put them exactly where you want them. Also if you decide that some items just don’t belong in your new home and you want to ditch them that’s not a problem either, we have a waste carriers license from Kent County Council and we will be able to dispose of your unwanted items in a responsible and ethical manner.
One of the things that can make buying and selling a bit of a nightmare in this country is long chains of people all trying to co-ordinate the dates on which they’re going to exchange and complete.
What more and more people are doing these days (especially people who’ve had their sale fall through once or twice) is move all of their belongings into storage so that they can guarantee their sale to their buyer. If a buyer has the money to buy your old home why risk losing them by getting yourself tied up in knots in some overly long and complex chain? Just sell your house to them and put all of your belongings into storage.
Yes there are some issues, you’re going to have to rent somewhere whilst you look for a new place to buy and you’re going to have to pay for the storage. But it really can take a lot of pressure off of you and your family if you break the buying and selling process into 2 discrete steps. Assuming that renting in the short term is not going to be an issue financially you can now really take your time to find your new home, there is no longer a ‘window’ that you’ve GOT to find your new home in, you can take as long as you like and spend time to find the new home that is going to be the perfect fit for you.
If you’re moving into a new home that badly needs redecorating throughout then it can be an excellent idea to put all of your belongings into storage when you sell and come into your new place bringing very little with you. Now, with the new place being pretty much empty it’s so much easier to get some plastic sheeting down and get the tins of paint out and transform your new home into what you want it to be without the chore of having to keep moving furniture from one room to another and/or cover it all up with dust sheets.
Here at Philip Marks Removals we often move people who have a lot of stuff and they ask us to put everything into the lounge because they intend to repaint the whole of the upstairs area and once that’s done they intend to move everything upstairs and repaint the whole of the downstairs area. For some people it’s not a bad idea to be fair (for the kind of people who have a few 6’2” sons lying about, not doing too much at the moment anyway!) But sometimes we feel that the clients are possibly underestimating just how much work they’re letting themselves in for. Only you can be the judge of your particular set of circumstances but I would ask you to just think on how much easier it is to refurbish an empty house as opposed to a fully furnished one.
Lots of people leave their home to their children when they pass on. Bereavement can lead to difficult and trying times for many of us and although it’s obviously good to inherit a property it does also present some challenges to the new owner(s).
If there are multiple siblings inheriting the house then there may be disagreements about the best way forward. I’ve dealt with situations where 1 son wants to clear the place out and sell it as quickly as possible but his brother wants to sift carefully through everything that’s in the house and then redecorate it so as to get a better price for it. These disagreements can become fractious and I doubt that trying to sort all this out shortly after the passing of a family member helps in any way, shape or form.
If the original homeowner had drifted towards being a bit (or a lot!) of a hoarder then perhaps house clearance is the best way forward. However if the homeowner had filled his or her home with lots of quality furniture, paintings, ceramics, musical instruments and so on then perhaps storage might be the way to go.
If you can get all the high value stuff (and by that I mean sentimental value as well as any possible £s value) out of the property then it can really help.
With an empty property it’s so much easier to give the place a good clean. If you’re umming and ahhing about whether it’s worth redecorating or not, seeing the place empty with a fresh set of eyes will certainly help. If a room is empty it really jumps out at you if the wallpaper/ paintwork is a bit tired (or totally exhausted!)
It’s also easier to find any gremlins that might be lurking behind stuff, leaking pipes for example. Best to find out about those before you start having people coming to view and one of them finds it because then you’re under pressure to get that fixed quickly.
So to summarise, if you have inherited a property and you want to sell it and it’s got a fair bit of good quality furniture and stuff in it then why not get Philip Marks Removals to come around and move all that stuff into our storage facility for you.
Now you can do whatever needs doing to the property unimpeded by ‘stuff’. If there are any discussions to be had about who keeps what or what’s getting sold or what’s getting dumped then at least those can be had whilst work is ongoing at the property. And if 3 different people want different things to keep that’s not going to be a problem, give us 3 different addresses and 3 different lists of items and we’ll deliver all of it tout suite!
If you are planning on travelling abroad for a reasonable amount of time then you might be considering renting out your home via Airbnb (or some other platform) so as to generate additional revenue while you’re away. Or you might be thinking about having various family members around so that they can keep an eye on the place whilst having a break from their normal situation.
Let’s imagine you’re spending 1 year abroad and you’re going to have a daughter or a brother pop in once a month to air the place out, stick around for a few days, do a bit of gardening etc.
Imagine you’ve got us round to pop most of your larger items into storage so that the ol’ homestead is in a stripped down version of itself. Now imagine your appointed family member pops round and discovers that a pipe has split underneath the lounge radiator and the lounge floor currently resembles The Everglades. Bad news, but at least the room is mostly devoid of furniture so your appointed caretaker relative can get a plumber around to replace the pipe, open lots of windows, get a dehumidifier in, dry the place out and then consult with you about the floor (I.E. leave it until your return or get some quotes in for repair.)
Now imagine you left the lounge exactly as it is now, before you went away. Not pretty is it? Loads of ruined soggy furniture is going to give your appointee a real headache. What to do with it all? How to dry the place out? Will a plumber be able to reach the affected area? Open windows and a dehumidifier is not going to cut it now unfortunately.
So now his/ her headache becomes a real concern for you, especially if you’re thousands of miles away.
So it’s not my place to try and terrify you into storage but believe me, dealing with any type of vacant property situation remotely is ALWAYS going to be easier IF the property in question is mostly empty.
Also, irrespective of whether you’re using Airbnb, relatives or some other kind of house sitting/ renting format you may well want to get your most valued and prized possessions out of there. If your brother pops around as arranged, and brings your nephew too, for a little day out and your nephew puts a football into the replica of HMS Victory that your Grandad made out of matchsticks during his time as a P.O.W. in Europe during the war, well …… families have come apart at the seams over less, I can assure you.
So your partner and yourself are having a baby together, bless you, that’s wonderful and the very best of luck to all 3 of you!
So you’ve explained to your wife/ partner that you’re definitely going to be able to squeeze the cot into the spare room, down 1 side, so long as you move the Triumph Thunderbird 6T, that you’ve been renovating, down the far end of the room (tools and spares will have to go under the kitchen sink, there’s never anything useful under there anyway, right?)
And, having worked it all out so carefully, made measurements and the like, to your total surprise, your partner/ wife isn’t having it!
I’m being flippant obviously but it’s a fact of life that having a kid turns your home environment upside down. Kids need space and on top of that some of the heavier stuff you’ve got lying about could be dangerous to a toddler. And I know that, at first, a baby isn’t going to be running around but time flies, really, so from experience, trust me, have a clear out before the new arrival has arrived.
Anything that you’ve got, that you don’t want to sell, that you’re determined to come back to further down the road, motorcycles, bicycles, canoes, kayaks, battle of Waterloo 1/72 scale dioramas, kilns, pizza ovens, humidors, robots, RC planes, anything at all, let us pick it up, remove it, store it safely and securely and when the time is right, we will reunite you with it and you can pick it back up right where you left off. Easy!
One final note, we don’t store cars. Cars present some unique problems when it comes to storage so you’re best off using someone who specialises in that field if you need your 1968 Ford Mustang GT offsite for a while.
I knew a guy once who was a keen Kayaker. He built himself a quite elaborate system of ropes and pulleys that enabled him to store various kayaks and canoes in his living room. They all hung from the ceiling, the house had high ceilings so as long as you weren’t over 6’4” it wasn’t a problem.
He lived alone.
If you are an activities nut then the gear comes in thick and fast and finding somewhere to put it can be taxing. If you surf in the summer why not let us store all the gear for you in the winter? If you ski in the winter why not let us store all the gear for you in the summer? Going Stateside next year to hunt down that 80 CI Flathead Twin? Let us store the rolling chassis until you’ve got it.
Any projects that you’ve got going on that require lots of different gear at different stages then let us store the unwanted gear until you need it. So got a large, expensive geodesic greenhouse sitting around somewhere waiting for summer to arrive so you can do the necessary groundwork before you assemble and install it? Let us take care of it, it’ll be dry, out of the way, safe, and no-one’s going to try and squeeze past it with a bicycle and put a pedal through 3 bits of glass.
Got yourself a thriving online side hustle? Finding that the blue, yellow and red stuff is flying off the shelves, brilliant. Shame about all the green stuff though eh? Lots of inventory there, it’s trickling out and you invested in it so you’re not going to chuck it, let us store it for you, simple.
Got lots of documentation that you need to keep for tax or other purposes? Eats space doesn’t it? (You remember when they used to go on and on about the imminent arrival of the paperless office? Just never quite arrived did it?) We can handle that for you.
So you’ve got all 24 of the various Spitfire Mks up there on your shelves, gathering dust, all jammed together.
Here’s a thought. Why not get the Mk IX (4 blade propeller, twin Hispano 20mm cannons) into a nice display case and place that somewhere you can properly admire it and then let us take care of the other 23 variants for you?
Then with all that freed up shelf space you’ll finally be able to start work on that Short Sunderland Mk V that you’ve been meaning to assemble for the last 5 years!
So your son or daughter is coming home from university for the summer and they’re dragging a lot of stuff back with them.
Let us collect it, store it for you and then return it to you (or deliver it to their new digs come the start of the next academic year.)
If there’s an empty room just sitting there for them then it’s not a problem but if that’s not the case, well, bear us in mind.
These days space is at an absolute premium in the UK. Especially in the southern half of the UK.
Surely, If you’ve got stuff lying about that you’re never going to use you really ought to either recycle it or give it to charity. It’s not my place to tell you what to do but this is a no-brainer isn’t it?
The most difficult stuff to deal with is the stuff that you either KNOW you’re going to need at some point in the future or the stuff you THINK you may need at some point in the future.
This is the stuff that we can take off of your hands and keep safe until you actually do need it. Get that stuff out of that box room in your home and let your husband, sister, partner, daughter or nephew set up their easel in it and let them paint and draw to their heart's content. In other words, put that space to some really excellent use, enjoy!
