Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by 1-800-GOT-JUNK?.

Spring is here and with it comes a desire to clean, purge, and get our house looking its very best. Last year, I did a bit of nesting before Rory’s early arrival, but we didn’t really have enough time to thoroughly spring clean our home. This year, we’ve been on a mission to get rid of excess junk around here as we head into the warmer months.

Accumulating So.Much.Stuff.

Ever since we purchased our home in May 2019, it has been one project after another (with a baby in the mix too!). With all of those projects comes a lot of extra stuff. Extra wood, extra building materials, extra supplies that just continue to accumulate the more DIY projects you do. A good chunk of our garage was full of building materials from past projects and it was starting to get a bit out of hand.

Not to mention, we also had our old mattress and box spring from our bedroom along with a dresser from our office that we needed to get rid of. But what the heck do you do with all of this stuff? Some items we could donate locally, but it can be tough to get oversized items in the car and carted off to charity. Some local charities do accept old building materials, but not everything. So it can take a lot of time and effort to dispose of things safely and properly.

Deciding on 1-800-GOT-JUNK?

Then, I got an email from the team over at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? asking if I wanted to check out their services. I had seen their trucks around before but wasn’t entirely sure how exactly it worked. My main concern was that they take the junk away and it all ends up in a landfill.

I quickly learned that 1-800-GOT-JUNK? follows responsible environmental practices. They try to keep as much junk out of the landfill as possible, so they donate any items that are in good condition to local charities and recycle when possible. Learning this really swayed me to give them a try!

I booked my junk removal date and Finn and I got to work figuring out what we wanted to get rid of around here…

Gathering the Goods

At first, I didn’t think we would have that much to get rid of…mainly some old building materials (wood, bricks, pallets) and our mattress and box spring. But once we had that date on the calendar, it really put our butts into gear to scour the house and figure out what we really didn’t want around anymore. Now was the time to get rid of it!

Here’s a peek of our storage room where our DIY supplies have been turning into a big messy pile. They’re all gathered on a work table that was there when we moved in. I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen over…it’s not in the best shape. We’ve been meaning to buy a new storage piece to hold all of our supplies (with drawers and cabinets), but we didn’t know what the heck to do with the old wood table! It was added to the list for the team to haul away.

We slowly put more in our junk pile adding old electronics, rug pads, an old mirror, planters, some patio furniture, and more. The weekend before our big junk removal day, we parked our car on the street and filled up the center of our garage with anything we could think of.

Our Very Full Garage

Wow, now that’s a lot of junk! For two people who pride themselves on being pretty minimal, this was eye-opening! I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to come and take all of the junk out of here!

Junk Removal Day

The 1-800-GOT-JUNK? team of two arrived on time and ready to get to work. They were the nicest guys ever and made the entire process really enjoyable. I showed them a few of the items inside the house we needed to be hauled out, as well as our big junk pile in the garage. I was a bit horrified by it, but they didn’t bat an eye!

How It Works

The best part is you just kinda sit back and relax while they do all of the heavy lifting. Yes, Finn and I did a lot of work upfront to make our junk pile in the garage, but the team assured me that that is never required. Instead, you can just point to what you want to be removed and they haul it away!

They were able to get that big work table out of the storage room, which was such a relief. They did have to cut a piece of it to fit it out the door (they bring their own saws just in case!), but they got it out in no time at all.

Once they got a few of those inside items onto the truck, they started tackling our big garage pile. It was actually really entertaining to see them in action because it’s like a game of Tetris. They carefully pack up the truck to get it all to fit as tightly as possible.

They also put similar items together, gathering all of the wood and building materials first. They were really thorough and thoughtful with their packing of the big truck.

As for me, I was just giddy seeing the pile quickly go down in our garage as they worked away! They will take any items that they can safely recycle or dispose of (you can check out a list here). Luckily, everything from our pile made the cut!

Oh, and they even swept out our garage when they were done. Heck yes.

Pricing Details

It took the team about an hour to get all of our junk packed up and then it was time to pay. For most loads, they price by how much space your items take up in the truck. Pricing varies from city to city, so this is just the pricing for my area here in Chicago. The minimum charge is $129 and then it goes up from there depending on how much of the truck you fill up. 

Here’s a look at the truck with all of our junk. We really packed it in! My haul ended up taking up 5/6 of a load which cost $659. I was able to pay with my credit card right then and there.

Would We Do It Again?

So there’s my 1-800-GOT-JUNK? review. Would we do it again? Heck yes. I would recommend this to anyone looking to get rid of a lot of stuff. For us, it was well worth the price. It was going to be really difficult for us to safely dispose of a lot of these items, so it was a relief knowing that most of our junk was heading off to be donated or recycled.

Feeling Fresh for Spring

Our garage and storage rooms are cleaner than ever before! I can’t get over how much space we now have. Going into our garage used to stress me out, but now it’s a different story. We are feeling lighter around here and so excited for spring!

Now that we’ve done so much purging, it’s time to start cleaning around here.

I’m going to follow this spring cleaning checklist that I shared last year, along with this spring home maintenance to-do list. Anyone else ready to shape up their homes for the new season? I’ve gotta say it feels incredible!

Casey