How do you pack up and move things when you sell your house?

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This seems quite silly but I don’t know how to do it. We have 1DC age 18months, will be closer to age 2 I expect by the time we move.

Me and DH both work full time. I have 1 day annual leave left but could probably take a day or two of unpaid leave if it had to. (Leave year doesn’t reset until after the moving date).

We have pets in the garden.

Our house sale and the buying of the next house is moving along nicely but I’ve never had to move out of one house and into another house on the same day before.

How far ahead do you start packing? Should we hire a storage unit for a month or two to take some pressure off moving on one day?

I don’t think we can afford to pay people to move and pack us, I have family with vans so we’ve always used them in the past if we need to love big furniture.

I’ve heard that house sales often don’t go through until the afternoon, this seems even worse!

Just looking for other people’s experiences. Do you do all the packing in evenings and weekends?

And yes I think AIBU for not knowing how to do this.

Packers every time. It also means they are underwriting any breakages or damages to furniture. So easy, they come in, pack, leave you overnight with basics, first thing in morning come and load. Do the same the other end in reverse. Then all you have to worry about is loading/looking after kids and pets.

I hate it. We normally start with several trips to the tip to get rid of all the crap we’ve accumulated. Following that, we spend weeks packing and living amongst boxes. Moving day is shit as you think you’re nearly there but getting everything into the van is like jenga and then you feel as though you have to clean or the buyers (who you’ve never met) will think you’re slatterns 😆 I was exhausted last time.

How much do you earn per day? It will probably be cheaper to have a packing service rather than not work for a couple of days.

I would beg, borrow or steal to not have to move ourselves - especially with young children. We got a friend to take our pets for a few days either side of the move so we didn’t have to worry about them, and packing & removals means that the kids went to school from one house and came back to the new house.

It took our team of professional movers (and there were quite a lot of them) 2.5 days to pack and move all our crap (to be fair we had a huge amount of stuff) and a serious amount of boxes (which you’ll either need to buy or scrounge from mates). It would have taken us weeks of evenings and weekends to do the same and been a nightmare with kids about.

What does two days of unpaid leave equate to? Use this money to put towards paying for packing and moving.

Get a few quotes for removals now. Because they may not be available on completion day - so you want a selection.
declutter. As much as possible
if you can and are staying local - storage unit - it allows you to empty out your space over time
pack a few boxes every night - toys, summer clothes, stuff
plan on a bag per person with everything you’ll need for a week, including for the pets
pack a bag with stuff you’ll need ready when you get there - cleaning stuff, scissors, pen, paper, tools, cutlery, toilet paper, hand soap, snacks, drinks, tissues, etc - take it in your car together with mop and hoover
number and label all boxes with content and which room they should go to.
could the pets go somewhere overnight so they are not around for the move? Very unsettling for them.
we took all furniture apart the evening before and just slept on a mattress - you’ll need to be out pretty swiftly- with everything, so no back and forth, so everything needs to be boxed up the evening before. And it will take longer than you think.
good luck!

I've moved over 30 times and would never move now without removals people to do it for us.

To add…. Our removal company advised to live over two days. So they came the first day to take a lot of furniture and boxes, and then came back next day as they would not have been able to do it by 1 pm on one day.

We have moved a lot and the removal guys plus packing were immense. On the day they were packing, we sat having lunch in a cafe. By 4pm all packed - we stayed a night in a hotel at new location and they were on site at 10am for a next day move in. You can't underestimate how different it is having the time and energy to then unpack in your own time with beds assembled etc. always keep a 'day box' with you that has kettle, cups, instant hot drinks , a few plates and cutlery etc plus some cleaning things.

This. Staying in a Travelodge the night before makes it even easier.

Having done it both ways I would always pay a good company to pack for me now. It was a revelation, and only an extra £300 so £1200 I. Total for packing and moving a two bedroom house with big record and book collections. One other bonus is that if they pack it's covered by their insurance if you pack it usually isn't. I would get several quotes though - there was a difference of nearly £500 between ours. I would also make sure it was a professional company rather than man with a van types. Friends have been caught out agreeing an hourly rate on the basis of an estimated time and then finding the company moved really slowly and charged treble what was expected, took so long they had to pay penalties to their buyers and to add insult to injury found themselves doing at least half the moving themselves while the company they were paying meandered around.

Also - cosmetics and cleaning products, medicines etc are always a category I underestimate. I am going to learn this time (moving in two months) and clear them all out NOW so I don't pay someone to move boxes of almost finished shampoo, out of date cough mixture, empty bleach bottles etc. Bitter voice of experience! Also a great time to get rid of any kids toys that they won't even notice are not there in the new house.

Also - just from the emotional pov - just accept that moving day is quite hard, but it is over quite quickly and you won't have to do it again for a long time! Normal to get to the new house and go omg what a massive mistake wtf have we done, normally just ignore those feelings! Have a nice bucket of cleaning materials and a good hoover accessible for arriving at your new house - I have found that every move I make I clean down my old house completely then arrive to an utter shit tip, but a good scrub down helps you feel like the new place is yours much more quickly.

Professional removers really are amazing in their skill and well worth the cost usually, then focus on unpacking two boxes a day on the other side or everything in two days - you will soon discover which style psychologically suits you better!

I am going to reread Marie Kondo next week in preparation!

Oh and the professional movers make moving heavy goods like furniture and white goods look so easy, as well as knowing exactly how to do it safely. Our marriage might well have struggled if DH and I had had to move the sofa, fridge freezer etc ourselves...

If you hire a company to do the packing for you, make sure you pack and move anything particularly precious yourselves. My aunt used a company who broke some irreplaceable ceramics made by her grandfather. Although the insurance paid up a cursory sum eventually, the ceramics were gone forever.
Think about what you would be heartbroken to lose and take it with you in the car.

Going out for lunch whilst someone else has already driven off with your stuff sounds lovely! 😂

Thankyou though lots of very good points

Put all your bedding stuff in one clearly labelled box so that you can prioritise having somewhere to sleep. Make the beds up as soon as you get to the new house. You’ll be so happy to fall into them at the end of moving day.

As you have no idea what is involved and how to do it, as well as having little time and scope to do it, because of jobs and children, the best thing for you is to pay the removals company to do the packing. You will have to scrape and scrimp a bit to afford it but you will be glad you did it.

The only other way would be to get help from some practical experienced packers from among family or family who can mind children to give you time to do the packing.

If doing the packing yourself, start now. Everything will take twice as long as you estimate. Packing up the kitchen takes up the most time as there is a lot of stuff, most of which you can't just gather up like an armful of clothes or shoes or books and papers and throw into bags or boxes if pushed for time but is often heavy or awkward stuff and breakeables that require careful individual wrapping and padding and numerous crates or boxes - because of the weight: you can't fill up a box if it's going to be too heavy to manoeuvre or lift. All of that adds to the time it takes. I was in a state of real fear and panic that I wasn't going to get the kitchen done in time. And there was still the garage to do. A garage can be another hellish place that will take ages to pack up if it's crammed with accumulated miscellaneous stuff and you don't know in detail what all is in there and what's needed to pack or move it.

We have family close by so could probably all sleep somewhere else the night before.

After tax I earn just over £100 a day so that could go towards removals if I didn’t need to take any time unpaid.

We did quite a lot of decluttering to sell, but someone of our rooms will be quite different in the next house so need to think about what we actually need to keep!

I’ve started going out for quotes! Thankyou mumsnet!

You can hand a set of keys into your solicitor the day before, saves a job on the day. Just post your set through the door as you leave.

I am very glad I asked the question several months in advance 😂

Start now. Leave yourselves the minimum you need - week's worth of clothes/pants/etc. One spoon/knife/fork/teaspoon/plate/etc each. Have a staging area where things are stored - in boxes, preferably one upstairs one downstairs. If in doing so, you can manage a bit of decluttering, so much the better.

Just to note, we didn’t have to pack clothes in drawers- they just took the full drawers out, loaded the furniture and put the drawers back in on the van then the same in reverse the other end.
Wardrobe boxes take seconds to pack so you can leave hanging stuff too.

Get packing now just leave out what you absolutely need!

I am so envious of everyone who paid for packers and movers. We had nothing left after getting together the deposit and didn't dare touch it after proof of funds was sent through, so had to frantically save up for surveys and conveyancing fees (luckily we chose a terrible firm so we had plenty of time to get the money together).
We moved ourselves because I never learn. Don't do this - it will test your endurance and the limits of your relationship. We are never moving again.

Please take out whatever policy the movers offer that allows you to change h the date. Our buyer messed us around and we had to postpone by a week - I'd paid a small amount extra and so saved £700 as we could move the date.

Make sure too that boxes are well marked as to which room to go into and which room they came from because there's nothing worse than realising you have big heavy boxes that are now on the wrong floor!!! And no one to help up and down stairs- Obviously not applicable if it's a flat or bungalow.