Furnishing Futures warehouse makeover

Dilly Carter of BBC’s Sort Your Life Out helps Furnishing Futures super-organise their new warehouse

Furnishing Futures tackles furniture poverty for women fleeing domestic abuse, creating healing homes, with help from the interiors industry. The charity had a huge breakthrough at the end of 2022, moving into their first warehouse, having previously been run from founder Emily Wheeler’s home. Having moved all furniture and homeware donations into the new space, held a warehouse sale and fitted it out with racking, shelves and cupboards with help from commercial fit-out company Jungle, it felt just as Emily wanted it: an interiors showroom rather than a warehouse.

But despite having built lots of storage, there was still the mammoth task of sorting everything out, and many boxes of donated items to unpack in order to start a proper inventory system. One of Furnishing Futures’ volunteers is a professional organiser on Dilly Carter’s Declutter Dollies team, and when Dilly – known for being chief organiser and straight-talking declutter expert on Sort Your Life Out with Stacey Solomon – heard about the charity’s mission, she wanted to help get the warehouse organised.

So, in April, she and a team of 10 organisers spent the day at the warehouse going through every box and donation, sorting, labelling and organising. The result is a beautiful, clear space where beneficiaries can spend time with the Furnishing Futures team choosing furniture, lighting and accessories for their new home.

‘It was incredible to have Dilly and her team here and to watch them organise our space in just one day!’ says Emily. ‘Now we know exactly what we have, everything has its place and the warehouse looks like an inviting showroom for the women we support. We’re really looking forward to working regularly with Dilly and her team, who are now partnering with us both in the warehouse and in women’s homes.’

How you can help

Donate goods by contacting donate@furnishingfutures.org, volunteer to help at volunteer@furnishingfutures.org or buy a charity gift online.