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The Declutter Queen
The Declutter Queen
The Declutter Queen is more than a podcast—it’s a movement toward creating calm, clarity, and control in your home and your life. Hosted by a passionate advocate for intentional living, the show helps listeners break free from overwhelm and build sustainable systems that actually work. At its core, The Declutter Queen is about more than organizing stuff. It’s about understanding the emotional, mental, and practical layers of clutter—and empowering people to let go of what no longer serves them. Each episode offers real-life strategies, relatable stories, and actionable steps to simplify spaces, reduce stress, and make room for what truly matters. From tackling overflowing closets to navigating sentimental items, the podcast meets listeners where they are—without judgment—and guides them toward lasting transformation.
Oct. 7, 2026

How to Sell Bulky Furniture Without the Stress

How to Sell Bulky Furniture Without the Stress
The Declutter Queen
How to Sell Bulky Furniture Without the Stress

Decluttering before a move is hard enough. But what do you do with the couch nobody picks up, the piano you can’t move, or the expensive exercise equipment you no longer use?

I sit down with Ari Kimmelfeld, founder of Commonplace, to talk about downsizing and selling large, valuable items without the stress of managing every detail yourself. I share my own moving challenges, from Facebook Marketplace no-shows to donation services that couldn’t take heavy furniture. Ari explains how Commonplace approaches buying and selling secondhand furniture, appliances, fitness equipment, and other bulky goods by managing inspections, pickup, delivery, setup, and payments.

We also explore selling items from storage, why a small price tag can sometimes attract more interest than “free,” and how a monthly decluttering habit can help you avoid a last-minute moving scramble.

Whether you’re preparing to move, downsizing your home, or ready to reclaim your space, this conversation offers practical ideas for letting go of the possessions that feel hardest to shift.

Learn more about Commonplace at trycommonplace.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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[music] The Declutter Queen with Avery Cundle. Let me paint this scenario. You've just sold your house, offer accepted, and are now in the process of a major declutter and pack-up.

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You have lots of work, as you have lived in your home for many, many years. And also, you can't take all of your worldly possessions to the next location, as you won't have as much room.

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Yeah, your adult children take some stuff, friends and family take some more, but you still have so much stuff, including couches, a piano, large wooden furniture, and more.

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After much deliberation, you've decided you're gonna sell some stuff on Facebook Marketplace. Seems like a good idea, right?

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You start doing research on how much to ask for some various pieces, and then you start the process of photographing and posting. Easy-peasy, right? Well, not quite.

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The questions start rolling in, and this stuff sometimes is comedy. In regards to your listing of a wooden armoire, you receive the following question: "Can I take it with me on the bus?"

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[laughing] [music] You also posted some workwear with the sizes clearly posted, and you get no less than 10 questions asking what the sizes are. Sure makes you wonder.

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I don't mean to make this sound like a complete shit show. There most certainly are some easy, simple transactions where the deal is done, the items are picked up, but it can be less than we expect. So what now?

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You managed to sell some of the items, but you have a whole lot left. Next stop, donation. You might be able to find a local company that offered to pick these items up free of charge.

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You may breathe a sigh of relief, but that might have been premature, as when the two guys arrive, they may make a decision to only take one of four of the pieces.

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Not sure if they just didn't wanna carry heavy pieces, but they seemed huddled in the corner making a decision. Disappointed, you have to come up with yet a third plan.

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[music] Well, after circling back with family and friends, you may decide Facebook Marketplace is the place to return and offer the items for free.

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What could be more appealing than free? Ah, however, this tactic can sometimes turn up fruitless. You may even get no bites. Perhaps people assume something is very wrong with a free item.

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Not sure. Sometimes a tactic might be to attach a very small amount of money to the items, maybe selling a couch for $10, for example. So you start that process.

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I think it's important for me to mention that perhaps you're left with a very short window until moving day. Maybe even less than two days. Ah, IBS all-time high.

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[music] Okay, well, you do the listing for the second time, possibly the third time, and as luck has it, a lovely couple who were blending families arrive.

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Not only did they take the items that you had posted, but they d- decide on the spot to take everything. Well, as luck would have it, but I always say luck and hope is not a strategy.

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The stress you experienced is too high, even though, ah, you breathe that sigh of relief. But it could have gone the other way, just as easy, and now you're left with items. How do we prevent this from happening?

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Is there another way? Perhaps a better way of decluttering these larger items, whether it's for a move or just to get rid of them.

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Large, heavy, and sometimes expensive items are more difficult to declutter than we think. That old treadmill that you haven't used in eight years, big couches, expensive furniture, clunky. What can you do?

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[music] [footsteps] [door opening] And now, Tea with the Declutter Queen. I'd like to welcome Ari Kimmelfeldt to the show.

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Ari is the founder of Commonplace, a managed marketplace for bulky secondhand furniture and gear. Sellers list once, Commonplace handles inspection, pickup, and delivery so people don't have to do stranger meetups.

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Already I love this idea, as somebody who's sheepish. So as I welcome Ari to the show, welcome Ari. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, Avery. I'm excited to be here. Me too.

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And so Ari reached out, and he may have a solution to all these, or possibly just one, failed Facebook Marketplace sales, or lack thereof So Ari, I'll hand over the show to you to just tell us what you do and what your ideas are for all of these decluttering fans.

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For sure. Happy to, to jump in, um, speak a little bit about Commonplace.

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I would say the catalyst to starting this business is really the scenario that, that you painted that picture for, and it was specifically with, uh, a Peloton experience that was not very different from the couch-selling experience you just described.

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Where, as you can imagine, something that's heavy like a couch, and you try to go buy it, you know, and then you have to send a bunch of messages.

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A lot of sellers might not reply right away, or some of them are not available. And so, you know, for both buyers and sellers, there's a lot of frustration that happens on Facebook Marketplace.

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And then, you know, because it's a big item, you then have to figure out how you're gonna haul it. You know, sometimes it's down a few flights of stairs, and then it's into a truck.

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In New York City, most people don't have trucks or cars, and so then you have to rent a U-Haul. In a bunch of different places, people have different sorts of, of challenges.

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Um, and you're also meeting up with a stranger. You have to make a payment to a stranger that's usually hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, um, that you might not be comfortable doing.

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And then, you know, with a couch, you might look at the couch and be able to see any stains or, you know, any scratches on it.

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But with something like a washer and dryer, you might not be a washer and dryer expert when it comes to inspecting a used washer, dryer, or a hot tub, or a sauna, or some, you know, more connected fitness equipment like a treadmill that has, like, the subscription and all of that stuff.

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So you really want to have an expert there that's, you know, inspecting things for leaks, um, any damage, and, you know, help you with the whole pickup and delivery process.

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And then with the payments, of course, you know, what if you wanna pay in installments?

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Well, if you're buying a $4,000 or $5,000 hot tub, yes, you might be saving from a $12,000 hot tub, which, you know, is what they go for new, but it might be easier to pay that over 24 months, right?

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$100 a month or $150 a month is, is definitely doable, and you're already, you know, saving a lot. And then the same thing for, for selling.

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You wanna make sure you get paid right away, and somebody doesn't just show up and is really a tire kicker and just wasting your time.

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A lot of these friction points was what I experienced as a buyer and a seller, uh, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that couch scenario. Um, so we basically manage all of that. So sellers get paid right away.

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Buyers just place a $1 deposit to place an order on something, and they can pay the rest on delivery.

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We do a 30 to 50-point inspection pre-pickup as well as on pickup with our trained crew that, you know, touches every single product before it gets picked up, and we send over that inspection to the buyer to make sure that they're happy with what is getting picked up.

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And remember, nothing is paid for by the buyer until it actually gets delever- delivered and set up for them. And then we also offer a warranty.

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So unlike Facebook or Craigslist, where everything is pretty much final sale, you know, obviously there are no returns, and you're not getting a manufacturer warranty, but we offer a free two-month parts warranty on every single product.

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So if you're buying a hot tub, we make sure to do the inspection, and that is the reason why we can offer a warranty. So if there's anything wrong in the inspection, we'll let you know.

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If there's a leak in the hot tub or in the washer, dryer, or if there's, you know, some reason that the refrigerator is not working, um, or there are some scratches on, on a couch, we'll let you know.

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But anything that wasn't picked up in the inspection, we offer that free warranty. And then there is also an option to get a 12-month or a six-month warranty on something just to make you more comfortable.

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And, and really, I think, you know, the mission of Commonplace is to make people more comfortable buying secondhand and to really make it accessible.

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So in a sense, we're democratizing secondhand shopping for the things that are, are very hard, uh, to move, uh, and sometimes pay for. Absolutely. So Ari, just a quick question.

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Do you mostly deal with larger sized items, or do you use, you know, sort of span the spectrum? There are a lot of different products, so a lot of categories. I would say 90% of them are very large.

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I would say maybe the 10% is where they're, they're sometimes very expensive. And so even if they're not so large, I'll give you an example.

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Um, there are a lot of listings for med spa equipment, and sometimes it is heavy and bulky, but sometimes it might just be, uh, like a, a laser that's $6,000.

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And it's just very expensive, and people would be more comfortable buying or selling it, you know, through a managed marketplace, um, where, you know, they want payments.

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You wanna make sure that nobody's gonna just show up and, and steal it or break it when they're testing something out. You know, you, you really wanna deal with, with a company when buying or selling something like that.

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But for the most part, to answer your question, um, they're big things that are hard to move and also on the pricier side. So think of things that are over $1,000.

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I recently moved, and one of the biggest problems for me, it seemed, I was able to unload a couple things on Facebook Marketplace and just giving stuff away.

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But some of my larger sized furniture, like really beautiful, uh, wood furniture, for example, that's super heavy, I was kinda left at the last, and it was sorta like, you know, okay, it's a fire sale at this point.

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So I think that the bigger, bulkier items, sometimes very valuable, can sometimes be a problem, specifically if you're moving or just trying to get rid of them.

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So I really like these ideas that you're having, and I like the fact that it's... you got a little bit of insurance policy on it because you guys are acting as these insurers.

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And all of these things like delivery, payments, you know, warranty, insurance, the inspection process, like, all of these things are really just to

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Make people more comfortable to transact things that are secondhand, but I think there is some stigma around secondhand. You know, I think it's kind of getting less and less over, over time.

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You know, I remember, like, 10 years ago there was definitely much more of a stigma than there is today. Um, but there's so much value there.

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You know, a lot of people buy either a Peloton or a sauna or a hot tub or even a couch, um, for one reason, and for another reason when they're moving, or maybe they just don't use it, you know, as much and it just became a clothing rack, which happens.

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The condition, the quality is usually really good, 90% pretty much or even 100% of what it was when it was new, so there's so much value there.

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And just to give you a, a really crazy statistic, on average, um, and, you know, it changes a little bit, but on average people pay about 65% less than what it costs retail. Wow. That's a lot.

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So, so it's, it's significant. It's really significant savings. And these numbers are with delivery included. So what I didn't mention is that we offer free delivery within 100 miles. Okay.

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And 100 miles is, is pretty far.

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I mean, if you, if you think about, like, the different things that you might have bought in the past on, on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, they're most likely, unless it might be something really big like a car, they're most likely within 100 miles.

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There's so much inventory and so many things out there that you can just get delivered for free, which is pretty much like Amazon except you're now getting it 65% below retail.

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Well, I think in today's world, as we all know, that's a good thing. [laughs] Yeah. Um, what, what area are you operating in? What areas, I should say? Currently we're all over the continental US.

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So we have over 3,000, uh, trained delivery drivers that pick up, inspect, deliver, and install a wide variety of categories.

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As we discussed, there are probably some that we didn't discuss, but you can imagine we also do, like, golf carts and jet skis and it's just- Yeah, that was my next question. Sort of what...

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I understood it was more of the larger stuff, but it sounds like you'll do, uh, you know, pretty much anything.

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Things that are expensive and hard to move are, are really the, the North Star in terms of, you know, what, what categories, uh, to get into. Okay.

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Um, but we are, we are looking to expand in Canada, uh, so that's, that's on the horizon. Yeah. Good. Um- We need you. [laughs] We need you. Yeah. I mean, every, every state that we've expanded to, it...

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W- we basically did it state by state. We've got, you know, a great welcome in every state.

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And, uh, it takes some time to branch out in each region, um, both on the logistics front and also on the, uh, buyer and seller mix, 'cause you wanna have inventory to display to buyers, and you wanna make sure first that you can move that inventory, so.

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Right. Right. I'm curious to know how my audience can get in touch with you, and, uh, you know, if you can give me any of that information, that would be great. So we're on all the social media platforms.

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Um, we like to post a lot of, uh, helpful content on YouTube on, for example, how to move a hot tub or a sauna or even a swim spa with a crane.

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Um, uh, we post a lot of, like, technical videos that are helpful, uh, for people that might be moving things on their own, you know, just to, to get the word out.

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Um, we're also on Instagram, on Facebook as Try Commonplace, and then the website is trycommonplace.com. Uh, you can sort by categories and locations.

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And we deliver within 1,500 miles, so somebody, uh, in Boston can get something delivered from Georgia, for example.

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You know, there's, there's added fees for having something delivered that far, but again, it's, it's free delivery within 100 miles and then we can deliver as far, uh, as 1,500 miles. Well, I love that.

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Are you a bit of a declutterer, Ari, or is this just part of the package? My family's definitely, uh, on the leaner side of, of things. We like to get rid of things, uh, when we can.

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I would say, uh, decluttering, but I think the, the hardest part about it is just putting it on a calendar and just decluttering on a schedule because, uh, things just happen to, to pile up.

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That's my one tip that, that has worked for us, is just, like, put it on the calendar, a monthly thing that we're proactively getting rid of things.

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And as I try to tell my mother every time I go home, she's like, "Do you want this?" I'm like, "Not, that's not the way to declutter. Now you're just moving declutter from family member to family member.

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You must get rid of it." [laughs] She's like, "Would you like the piano?" And I'm like, "No."

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[laughs] So, and that was my question too, you know, one of the things when I moved was I had a piano that I just wasn't gonna be able to house anymore, and I could not get anybody to pick it up.

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I thought, you know, the universities or colleges in my areas might want it or anything, and those are heavy and hard to move. So I imagine that is within your, your realm as well.

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One thing we've already launched and another thing we're experimenting with, the first thing is store to sell. So imagine if somebody is moving, say, from Texas to New York.

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They got a job in New York, they're moving out of Texas, but they can't sell all of their furniture and belongings, you know, that they want to get rid of because they're moving to a smaller apartment in New York.

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You know, putting it into, all into a storage unit just makes it more difficult to actually declutter later because now you're just endlessly paying for a storage unit when maybe a, you know, a good number of those items can, can be sold and should be sold, but you're not gonna be there to meet up with the, the buyer, et cetera.

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So we offer a store to sell option where basically you'd pay a storage fee, you know, the same way you'd be paying for a storage fee if you had all your stuff in storage, except the benefit, of course, is that it gets listed on Commonplace, uh, it's open to buyers, and then when something sells, we manage the sale process.

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So we pick it up from storage, um, we send you the payout digitally, you know, so you don't have to worry about meeting up with a, a buyer and everything, uh, and slowly that whole storage unit can be sold, you know, within a couple of months, and then you no longer have to pay that storage fee.

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So that's the store to sell option. We offer that nationwide. And then the, the other thing is we're enabling people to be able to donate, uh, things, uh, locally.

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So depending on what category it is, different, uh, donation centers would be accepting, uh, different kinds of products.

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And it doesn't work across all the products, uh, but there are definitely a few things that, that, you know, organizations would like and the people, um, would be interested in, in donating.

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Well, you know, this is all really wonderful information, and I know my American audience might be hounding you now, and they might ask me, so I've got all your information.

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Because if we're on this journey of decluttering, this is a wonderful way to do it, and it feels sort of comforting to know that somebody else will be working with us, you know?

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And I know sometimes people are afraid to do Facebook Marketplace. Sometimes people don't want people coming to their house, and they want a little bit of help with it. So I think you're really providing a great option.

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I await you to come to Canada. [laughs] And, uh, you know, be a... we'll provid- send that to our Canadian audience. But, um, lots of Americans tuning in, so we hope that you can be of help to them.

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And, uh, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Avery, thank you. Thank you very much. [upbeat music] Thanks for listening to the Declutter Queen with Avery Cundle.

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For more decluttering tips and tricks, go to thedeclutterqueen.ca. Produced and distributed by the Sound Off Media company. [upbeat music]
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