Garage clearance in Killiney: stored sofas, rugs and beds

The garage as a furniture store

Killiney has a great many large family homes, and large homes produce a particular kind of garage. It is not full of junk. It is full of things that were too good to throw out.

The three-piece suite went out there when the sitting room was done. The dining chairs followed when the table was replaced. A parent's house was sold and the rugs, a bed and two armchairs came back "until someone wants them". Ten or fifteen years on, the car has never been in the garage, and nobody is sure what is under the dust sheets.

Our main garage clear-out page explains the service, and house clearance in Killiney covers the area. This page is about one decision: with stored furniture, rugs and beds, what should be cleaned and kept and what should simply go.

What a garage does to soft furnishings

A garage is unheated and it breathes. Damp air comes in under the door for much of the year, and anything made of fabric, foam, wool or cardboard takes some of it in.

• Fabric and foam hold moisture and then hold the smell. A sofa can look perfect and still smell of the garage.
• Wool rugs draw moths. The damage often cannot be seen until the rug is unrolled.
• Mattresses take in damp from the side that rests on the floor or against a wall.
• Timber frames swell and loosen at the joints, and veneer lifts.
• Cardboard boxes go soft from the bottom up, so the lowest box in a stack is usually the worst.

None of this means everything is ruined. It means each piece needs to be looked at properly, in daylight, before anyone decides.

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Keep and clean, or clear: a test for each piece

This is how we look at stored furniture, and you can do the first pass yourself.

One honest point: cleaning removes dirt and most smells, but it does not undo damp that has got into the middle of a cushion or a mattress. Where that has happened, we will say so before any time is spent on the piece.

How the day runs

1. We look at the kept pieces with you. Anything you are thinking of keeping is brought out into the light. We check the frame, the fabric, the care label and the smell, and tell you plainly what cleaning will and will not do.
2. You decide. Keep and clean, keep as it is, or let it go.
3. Kept pieces go into the house, to the room you choose.
4. The garage is cleared. Everything else is carried out, shelving comes down if you want it gone and the floor is swept.
5. The cleaning is done indoors. Fabric is pre-treated and rinsed by hot-water extraction, and air movers help it dry. It is damp, not wet, when we leave, and a few hours in a warm room usually finishes it.

On a small job the clearance and the cleaning can share a visit. On a larger one the cleaning follows on another day.

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Rugs: unroll them before you decide

A rolled rug tells you nothing. Unroll it on the driveway on a dry day and look at both sides.

• Hold a corner and bend it. A backing that cracks has gone brittle and will not survive a wash.
• Look for bare patches and loose tufts, the usual signs of moths.
• Check the fringe and the edges for old repairs.
• Look at the reds and dark blues. Those are the dyes most likely to run, which is what the colour-run test is for.

Machine-made wool and synthetic rugs in sound condition are usually fine to clean on site. A silk rug, a valuable antique or one that is badly stained right through is a job for a specialist rug washer, and we will tell you so instead of attempting it.

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The rest of the garage

Around the furniture there is everything else, and all of it is part of the clear-out: boxes, bikes, tools, garden furniture, the spare fridge and the chest freezer. Empty the freezer and switch it off a couple of days ahead.

We cannot take paint, solvents, oils, fuel, chemicals, batteries or gas cylinders, full or empty. We stand them together and tell you where they are. If the garage has corrugated cement roof sheets or panels that could contain asbestos, we leave them exactly as they are, because that is work for a specialist contractor.

Papers, photographs and anything with a name on it that turn up in boxes or drawers are set aside and shown to you.

Getting a van to a Killiney garage

Many Killiney houses are set back up steep drives off the roads around the hill. Where a van can get up and turn safely, we load at the garage door. Where it cannot, the van stays on the road and we carry down, and the extra carrying is priced in before the day. Electric gates need the code or the remote arranged in advance.

A photo of the drive taken from the road is one of the most useful things you can send.

What Spotless does, in one place

• Garage clear-outs: the whole garage, or everything except what you are keeping.
• Upholstery cleaning: fabric sofas, armchairs and dining chairs, cleaned in your home. We clean fabric only, not leather.
• Rug cleaning: wool and synthetic rugs cleaned on site after a colour-run test.
• Mattress cleaning: cleaned in place, with the moisture kept low.
• Carpet cleaning in Killiney: for the room the furniture is going back into.
• Furniture removal: when only a few large pieces need to go.

If the garage is one part of getting the whole house ready, see our guide to a property clear out in Killiney and Glenageary before a sale.

Usable furniture that you are not keeping is set aside for reuse where possible. Metal and electrical items are recycled, fridges and freezers go for specialist appliance recycling, and the rest goes to authorised waste facilities under our permit, NWCPO-25-13287-01. We are fully insured on every job and work Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm.

Before we arrive

• Pull the dust sheets back and photograph each piece you might keep
• Unroll any rugs on a dry day and photograph both sides
• Find the care label on the sofa, usually under a seat cushion
• Decide which room the kept pieces are going into
• Empty the freezer and switch it off
• Send a photo of the drive from the road

Getting a price

Send the photos on WhatsApp to 085 202 1222, or use the quote form on this page. You will get one written quote covering the clearance and any cleaning you ask for, usually the same day, and the price is fixed before we start.