Winter doesn’t officially begin until the shortest day of the year on December 22nd, but for many of us that feels like the middle of winter, not the start.
It also plunges you into the middle of the Christmas festivities, so why wait? Autumn is the perfect time of year to hire a skip and prepare for whatever winter throws your way.
Here are five ways to prepare for winter with a skip and give yourself a stress-free holiday season to cosy up in front of the fire with a mug of mulled wine or hot chocolate.
Pre-Christmas clear-out
Even if you love Christmas and New Year’s, the winter season as a whole can feel cold, dark and wet at times – so it’s useful to make your home as homely as possible.
A pre-Christmas clear-out can make more room for guests, but equally, it clears space for Christmas decorations like a Christmas tree to take pride of place without being surrounded by clutter.
Hire a skip and don’t just clear out visible clutter, but also empty your drawers and cupboards of anything you don’t need anymore to free up storage space for the things you decide to keep.
A lean and clean wardrobe
Ditch your tatty old threads and make room for a streamlined winter wardrobe where each item has clear air around it to keep things from getting damp and musty during storage.
Bulky garments like thick jumpers and cardigans can be vacuum-packed and stored away in summer, but they need more hanging space when you free them from their plastic prison.
Most of us are hoarding clothes we never wear and while some can go to charity shops or hand-me-downs to friends and family, the old ratty-looking garments might be better off in a skip.
DIY debris
The end of the year can come at you pretty fast and there isn’t always time to finish off those best-laid plans for DIY decorating and makeovers.
Keep anything that’s still needed for the next stage in your home improvement endeavours, but if you’ve got empty paint cans, remnants of wood and other waste materials, make a point of getting rid of them.
You might find renewed motivation to complete the remaining work, or at least you’ll give yourself a blank canvas to pick things up again in the new year.
Don’t neglect the garden
Wet and windy weather can make working in the garden feel like even more of a chore, but it also makes it more important to give your outdoor space some TLC.
Again, be smart about what you want to keep – fallen leaves can provide nutritious mulch for flowerbeds and the last grass clippings of the year can do the same for your lawn.
But if you’re cutting back shrubs for the winter or removing weak and rotten branches from trees, hiring a skip is a good way to get rid of woody material that you can’t put in a garden waste wheelie bin.
Sail through the season with a skip
Finally, you might not have a specific type of waste to get rid of – but winter can still produce much larger amounts of rubbish, especially all the packaging from Christmas and extra waste from hosting house guests.
Hiring a skip for Christmas could be the best decision you ever make, giving you plenty of room for all that household waste and even somewhere to bin your Christmas tree when January comes.