To believe that we can unpack from a move in under a week, and ask for your best tips to be able do so?

I knew someone who moved to Australia and had packers do the stuff sent by freight. Two months later they unpacked and found the bins were full of rubbish. They had no idea how the one containing an apple core made it through without them being fined.

THIS!!!

My poor friend was left unwrapping tiny packs of hair slides, paper clips and rubber bands that the packers found in random places when she was moving out after a divorce (so had not been in the house).

Also, don’t worry OP, e we still have 2 boxes in the cellar from our move 3 years ago!

Organisation is your friend here.

I am a chaotic racoon and have moved 5 times in 5 years (do not recommend) and it is always chaos that takes forever because I can never be fucked to do what I KNOW works.

My best mate is the most organised human you've ever met in your life and her 4 moves in 6 years are 100% smoother then mine - and quicker.

If moving into a multiple storey house, stick large pieces of bright paper to each box (Red ground floor, Blue 1st etc) and label them clearly (Bedroom 1, Freds Clothes, Jumpers) and have labels on each door.

All the boxes being in the correct room takes SO much hassle out of it then you can go room by room.

Get some giant laundry bags for bedding, 1-2 for each bed, with bedding on (you don't need to change on move day, do a day or 2 before) and sheets in the bag. Your teens are perfectly capable of making the beds as soon as they're in the house.

Box of a set of cutlery, bowl, cup and plate for each person, cleaning surface spray, paper towels, loo roll and phone chargers (and any meds you take) to go with you (or info possible then a VERY clearly labelled box (we painted one hot pink for this).

Utilise your teenagers! its their house and move too!

A week is certainly enough time for all furniture and items to be put away, allow some time for the cleaning first. However, 8 months later, we still have loads of bags unpacked but these are non essentials. Xx

Quick !!! Read the original Marie Kondo book (and give the manga version to the teens)

the joy of tidying

then when you pack, ask yourself if you really need it, does it bring you joy? If you have unpacked boxes from the last move then you really need this!

once you have everything in categories then pack…..

second tip - massively over label the boxes, put lots of extra info on the outside, so kitchen / all the plates and bowls. Don’t overpack so they are easy to unpack at the same time. And pack like with like.

I've concentrated on bedrooms first, to ensure everyone can sleep in their own fresh beds, with a few personal bits out so it feels a bit like home. Then essentials out in bathrooms, the kitchen is the one that I will stay up until the early hours to get unpacked. A nice lie in and a delivered breakfast for everyone and crack on with day 2, the teenagers should be helping out unless their duties are to pet sit (?)

we moved in 2017. there are still boxes in the loft containing god knows what and they can stay there till we move again.....................

A couple of days I would imagine unless you have no storage sorted. A week should be plenty

We moved six months ago and still have quite a few boxes… but that’s because we are getting built in wardrobes but need some other building work to happen first, etc etc.

I would advise thinking carefully about where you want boxes to go when you move in - for example we had all the kitchen boxes in the kitchen, but that meant we had to move everything out of the kitchen first before we could clean it and start bringing one box in at a time to unpack. Would have been better to put them in the hallway outside!

We had most stuff done within a couple of weeks but in some cases it took longer - for example, we needed new furniture in one room but needed to get new carpets fitted so had to wait for one thing before we could do the next etc.

I did it alone in 3 days, DP rebuilt the beds etc and I unpacked every box, 3 days taking my time, regular long breaks. Non stop would be a day or two

We did ours in a weekend. Just got to keep going.

It's easy as long as you pack properly. Label kitchen .. cupboard on left etc

I could not cope with boxes from previous moves or unpacking for weeks.

I am afraid I’m bish bash bosh. Get it all in and out. Furniture can be rearranged over time. The only room that needs more consideration is the kitchen as you don’t want to manoeuvring that round. I can usually unpack and be running a home by day 2. You certainly do not need to be staying in a hotel. My kids were 16 & 20 last time we moved and we gave them £100 each to help on moving day. They were absolute stars.

Easily. We moved 6 weeks ago and used removal company and their packing service, we moved on a Wednesday and started unpacking immediately that evening then carried on over the next few days. We were fully unpacked and had the boxes collected by the Monday. It was hard work and we were knackered but it felt so good, I’ve had friends with full boxes still lying around 5/6 months after moving.

We are quite good at not keeping unnecessary stuff though and also hired a skip prior to moving to just throw stuff away.

I think we've only got two boxes left to be unpacked. They're n the garage behind other stuff though.

Mind you, it was 17 years ago we moved.

It all depends on what your current house is like. We were moved and unpacked in 2 days for our 4 bed house, and that was only because when we got into the new house we realised it was really filthy so the first day was completely cleaning.

However, I am someone that keeps e.g. the Christmas decorations in the loft in boxes labelled Christmas decorations so it was very easy to know what went where, what needed unpacking, what went straight in the loft/ garage.

My MiL has so much storage that she never needs to sort - when she had her kitchen done it took us 3 days just to work out what to keep / chuck. She still had junk paperwork from her old job despite being retired 10 years and tins that were best before 1994...

Depends how much stuff you have. We are family of four in four-bed and I’ve never taken over a week to unpack. I’ve moved house on a big scale twice.

Crikey!
My husband was working abroad and came home for a week to help us move. I had to go to work. Within a week all furniture was up, all boxes unpacked, attic boarded, curtain poles up and shelves put up in airing cupboard. You just work like crazy. And we had 3 teens! We had late nights, working into the early hours. But better just to get it done.

I was completely unpacked on the day in my bedroom house. I ruthlessly went through every cupboard and drawer the move and got rid of about a third of my belongings.
We had packers who packed the whole house the afternoon before the move and they put all the boxes in the right rooms and we did the rest that evening. Clothes arrived on rails so were mega easy and we knew where all the furniture was going to go. It’s a new build that came with curtains and carpet and after a day looked like we’d lived there a while.

All to do with prior organization. We have moved roughly every 18 months throughout a 35 year marriage. A week is definitely viable.

I left one house in the morning for school... By the time I got back to the new house, my Mum had already unpacked everything and put it away. Three bed detached.

I think we managed ours in a couple of days.

The secret is labelling the boxes accurately and knowing where things are going to go in the new house. Make floor plans of each room. Label boxes Dining Room 1, 2, 3 etc and put the numbers on the floor plan.

Be very careful with packers. If you leave half a sandwich on your table while they are around, you will find it at your destination. I moved from the US to the UK and found my paper rubbish at the other end!

Still unpacking 10 years down the line.

@OptimisticReindeer If your teens have capacity to help out too, that might shave a day off!

I frequently want to declutter but the minute I reach for something to chuck out, I kno w that Im likely to want it at some point in the future

Classic examples are clothes and bags, I fall out of love with something for a while and then rediscover it some years later and then its got a new lease of life. recently happened again with quite an expensive handbag which I could have chucked out on the basis of 'not used for a year', started using it again the other week and now have used it a lot it will go round the houses for a bit and then another bag will take its place.

This thread has made me look at our books, shelves and shelves of them, CDs and DVDs, who plays these anymore? But some of them are collectors items, even though they dont seem to have a purpose, do we chuck them?

Another example is 'old towels', I dont have any old towels for DIY jobs becuase Ive chucked them all out. I have a pile of old tea towels but they take up space so Im contemplating chucking them and then I wont have my stash of old towels at all

I dont have any old sheets either, having chucked them.