You’ve made the decision. A bungalow makes sense: one level, less to manage, a home that will still suit you in twenty years. Then you start packing and it hits you. Where does the loft stuff go? There isn’t one. That’s the moment this plan is for.
If any of these sound like you, jump straight in:
- Your loft is packed to the rafters: go to Size It by the Loft and Garage, Not the Bedroom Count. You’re probably looking at the 150 sq ft tier.
- Your loft and garage are fairly bare: go to the same section. The 100 sq ft tier likely covers you.
- You’re organising this for a parent or relative: go to Sentimental and Valuable Items: Don’t Rush the Fortnight and Your Locations and Your Next Step.
- The bungalow purchase timing is still uncertain: go to Using Storage as a Buffer If Your Timing Slips.
The Real Problem With a Bungalow Move
A bungalow has no loft, and often a smaller garage than the house you’re leaving. That’s the real sizing question, not how many bedrooms you’re going from and to. Most house-to-house moves size a storage unit by bedroom count and get close enough. A house-to-bungalow move is different, because the two spaces that quietly absorbed years of overflow, the loft and the garage, don’t exist in the same form on the other side. Size your storage around what those two spaces actually held, not around how many bedrooms the new place has.
It’s a simple shift in thinking, but it changes the answer. A three-bedroom house with a modest loft and a half-empty garage might need very little extra space. The same house with a loft you haven’t properly cleared since the children left, and a garage doubling as a workshop, needs a plan built specifically around those two rooms, because there’s nowhere for their contents to land in a single-storey home.
Whether you’re the one moving or you’re helping a parent or relative make the move, the question is the same. If you’re coordinating this for someone else, it’s worth walking the loft and garage with them directly rather than guessing from memory. What’s up there tends to be older than people expect, and the person who put it there is usually the only one who can tell you what still matters and what doesn’t.
Room by Room: What Actually Changes in a Bungalow
Most of the volume problem in a bungalow move sits in two places you won’t be sad to leave behind on paper: the loft and the garage. The rooms you’ll actually walk through every day, the lounge, the bedrooms, the kitchen, change too, but usually by getting smaller rather than disappearing.
The Lounge and Dining Room
A bungalow’s living space is often smaller than the house you’re leaving, not simply rearranged. A second sofa, an extending dining table, or occasional furniture kept for guests may not fit the new layout at all. Rather than force a piece into a room it won’t sit comfortably in, it’s worth deciding early which pieces are coming and which are being stored or let go.
Bedrooms
Bungalows tend to have fewer bedrooms, or smaller ones, than the family house they’re replacing. If a guest bed, a wardrobe of off-season clothes, or a spare room’s worth of furniture doesn’t have an obvious home in the new layout, that’s not unusual, and it’s not a problem you need to solve by getting rid of it all at once.
Kitchen
Bungalow kitchens are frequently more compact. Duplicate crockery, bulk serving pieces, and formal china kept “for best” are usually a sell or donate decision rather than a storage one. There’s rarely a strong case for paying to store kitchen items long-term, unless something has genuine sentimental or resale value.
None of these three rooms is where the real sizing risk sits, though. They shrink, and most people adjust to that within a few weeks of moving in. The loft and the garage are different, because they’re not shrinking, they’re gone, or much smaller, and that’s a decision you need to make before moving day, not after.
Size It by the Loft and Garage, Not the Bedroom Count
Wigwam publishes two unit sizes that answer this exact question. A 100 sq ft unit covers a typical furnished 3-bedroom household’s contents on their own. A 150 sq ft unit adds the garage, shed, and loft on top. That fork, built for house moves generally, turns out to be almost exactly the split a bungalow move needs, because the difference between the two sizes is, roughly, the contents of the floor a bungalow doesn’t have.
The Sizing Table
Walk your own move against this worked example, based on a typical three-bedroom house moving into a two-bedroom bungalow. It’s illustrative, not a real customer, so treat the totals as a starting point rather than a target.
| Where it used to live | What typically lives there | Where it goes near a bungalow | Wigwam sizing signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| The loft | Suitcases, Christmas decorations, box files, spare bedding, boxes from childhood | No loft in the bungalow at all | The single biggest swing factor. If this row alone would have gone in the loft, it’s the main reason to take a unit, not an afterthought |
| The garage | Tools, a bike, a mower, overflow furniture, seasonal kit | Often a smaller garage, or none. Nothing with fuel in it can go into storage, so a petrol mower needs draining first | Combines with the loft row to push toward the 150 sq ft tier |
| The lounge/dining room | A second sofa, a full-size dining set, occasional furniture | A single-level lounge is usually smaller, not the same size | Store the second suite or the leaf-extended table rather than force it in |
| Bedrooms | Spare-room furniture, guest bedding, off-season wardrobe overflow | Fewer or smaller bedrooms; a guest bed may have no home at all | Storing a guest bed long-term, with a review date, is a legitimate and common use |
| Kitchen | Duplicate crockery, bulk serving pieces, formal china | A more compact kitchen | Usually resolved by selling or donating rather than storing |
| Sentimental or valuable items | Furniture, china, photographs, documents with real or emotional value | Needs a considered decision, not one rushed inside a fortnight | Store this with a fixed review date rather than force a keep-or-discard call now |
If both the loft row and the garage row apply to your move, you’re very likely looking at the 150 sq ft tier, even where the bungalow’s bedroom count alone would suggest something smaller. That’s the reconciliation this table exists to make: the loft and garage are why the right number is bigger than a bedroom-count guess would predict. For the household-contents side of the fork on its own, Wigwam’s guide to sizing a unit for a 3-bed house move sets out the same 100 vs 150 sq ft logic in full.
Your Version
Run your own move against the table before you commit to a size:
- Loft contents: ____
- Garage contents: ____
- Anything else you’re unsure about: ____
If both loft and garage lines are full, plan around 150 sq ft. If one or both are mostly empty, 100 sq ft is probably enough.
The Contrast Case
Not every move to a bungalow carries this problem. Someone moving from a flat into a bungalow has no loft and no garage to clear in the first place, so there’s almost no “missing floor” to plan around, and the smallest unit, or none at all, may well be enough. This table is a diagnostic to apply to your own loft and garage, not a fixed answer that applies to every bungalow move regardless of where you’re moving from.
Once you know roughly which tier fits, the fastest way to lock in a size and a price for your own postcode is a quote: get a quote at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk.
Sentimental and Valuable Items: Don’t Rush the Fortnight
A two-week clearance window is the wrong deadline for deciding what to keep from a lifetime of furniture, china, photographs, and documents. Store what you’re not ready to decide about, and set yourself a fixed date to come back to it, rather than forcing a keep-or-discard call under moving-day pressure.
This is where the identity worry sits for a lot of people moving to a bungalow, whether it’s your own move or one you’re organising for a parent. Moving to one level can feel, unfairly, like a step down, and the pressure to clear a house in a fortnight makes that worse, not better. A considered “not yet,” backed by a proper review date, protects you from a decision you’d regret and gives the move room to feel deliberate rather than rushed.
If you’re organising this for a parent or relative, this is also the section to lean on when siblings disagree about what should stay and what should go. Storing the contested items, with a date to revisit them once everyone has had time to think, is usually kinder and more workable than trying to settle everything during the clearance itself. It takes the pressure off any one person to make an irreversible call on someone else’s behalf.
The Terms, Stated Once
Here’s what actually applies if you store with Wigwam during a bungalow move, in one place, so you don’t have to hunt for it later.
The minimum stay is two weeks, and after that you give 14 days’ notice to vacate. The deposit is refundable, and any days you’ve paid for but not used are refunded too. Contents cover comes through the RSA “Self Storage Customers’ Goods” policy, with a £50 excess; theft is covered only where there’s been forcible entry, and climatic damage, including atmospheric moisture and water ingress, is excluded. Access is by smart entry, 6am to 10pm, seven days a week. Sites are unmanned, so if you’re expecting a courier or a delivery to your unit, someone from your own household needs to be there to receive it. Vehicles and anything with fuel in it can’t be stored, which is why a petrol mower needs draining before it goes in. There’s no temperature or humidity control; the honest description is clean, dry and secure.
None of this is small print you need to hunt for elsewhere on this page. It’s the full picture, stated once.
Using Storage as a Buffer If Your Timing Slips
House chains and bungalow purchases don’t always move in step, and storage can absorb that gap without tying you into more commitment than you need. Because the minimum stay is two weeks and notice to vacate is 14 days, you’re not locked into a long fixed term just because your completion date has slipped. Clear the family home on your own timeline, keep everything safely stored, and give notice once your moving date into the bungalow is actually confirmed rather than guessed at.
This matters most for the adult-child sub-state: if you’re coordinating a parent’s move while a purchase is still uncertain, this flexibility means you can act on the clearance now, before the chain settles, instead of waiting and creating a last-minute scramble later.
It also means you don’t have to guess how long you’ll need storage for before you start. Take the unit when the family home needs clearing, keep the loft and garage tally from earlier as your rough size guide, and give notice once the bungalow move-in date is actually fixed rather than a moving target on a solicitor’s letter.
Set a Review Date, So “For Now” Doesn’t Become Permanent
Pick a date, three months, six months, whatever suits your situation, to revisit anything you’ve stored “for now.” That includes the sentimental items from earlier, any guest furniture, and anything else you weren’t ready to decide about on moving day.
A review date is what keeps temporary storage temporary. Without one, a unit taken for a few months while you settle in has a habit of quietly becoming a permanent fixture, and the things inside it never get the decision they were waiting for. Put the date in your calendar now, while the move is still fresh in your mind, and treat it as a real appointment with yourself.
For the sentimental and valuable items from earlier, that appointment is often the point where a decision becomes easier rather than harder. Time away from the pressure of moving day tends to clarify what actually matters, and a fixed date means the box doesn’t sit unopened for years by default.
Your Locations and Your Next Step
Wigwam operates 15 storage locations across UK market towns, from self-storage locations you can check for the one nearest your new bungalow. No single town is more relevant to a bungalow move than another, so the full list is the place to start rather than one we’d single out.
Once you’ve worked through the sizing table and have a rough tally of what’s coming from the loft and the garage, the fastest next step is a quote for your postcode. Current pricing by location and unit size is on the pricing pillar, and you can get your quote at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk whenever you’re ready.
Frequently Asked Questions
You’re not locked into a fixed end date. The minimum stay is two weeks, and after that you simply give 14 days’ notice when you’re ready to vacate, so a delayed or fallen-through purchase doesn’t leave you paying for term you don’t need.
It’s a legitimate use. Plenty of people store a guest bed or spare furniture that doesn’t have a home in a smaller bungalow. Just set yourself a review date so it doesn’t sit there indefinitely without a decision.
Yes, as long as it’s drained of fuel first. A petrol mower or strimmer needs the tank emptied before it goes into the unit, and no motorised vehicles are allowed in storage at any time.
Yes. Access is ground-level smart entry, 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, with no staff on-site, so you can come and go at your own pace without needing to arrange a visit around anyone else.
The loft. It’s easy to focus on bedroom count and forget that a bungalow simply doesn’t have the space that quietly held years of Christmas decorations, suitcases and boxes upstairs, so it’s worth planning for that first.
