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

[OptimisticReindeer]

We'll be staying in a local holiday let for the week of the move, and I really want to take advantage and get as much done as we can at the house.

Much preferable than to be living amongst the boxes, and we can dedicate a fair amount of time to it each day.

We have movers and opted for the packing service, so hoping that the boxes will be better organised than if we had done opted DIY. We've never had packers, or movers before so have no idea what to expect.

Is it manageable for a four-bed? How long did it take on your last move? Any tips also very welcome.

I have quite a lot of stuff, and I’m wondering how if would take a week to unpack.

One box per kitchen cupboard, then they’d take maybe an hour to unpack. Most other stuff is in drawers which will move still packed so they just need to furniture putting in place which presumably the movers would do.

Clothes from wardrobes we’d move on portable rails so again straight out and straight back in.

The offices and TVs would take a bit of setting back up, but there’s now way I’d need a day, or most of a day, to unpack each room.

But if you still have unopened boxes from the last move, you might have more stuff than you need… and it might be harder if you’re leaving fitted storage behind so there’s nowhere to put things you currently have stored away, but honestly with two of us plus movers putting the furniture in place, I can’t see how how unpacking our 4 bed would take more than a weekend. Even less with teens to help.

In your case, I’d write off day 1 as getting the furniture in, then day 2 carpet cleaning and getting the kitchen/non carpeted rooms unpacked, then smash the rest on days 3-4 (I think doable in a day but you have time).

I am assuming you have the week off work though.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's extremely unlikely that the OP is moving a bookshop and didn't mention that fact 😁

My best advice is to invite someone over for a weeks time. It’s a good motivation to get it all done and ensure the house is ready.

Also remember to take photos of your meter readings at old house and new house.

Ha! That is indeed what my house resembles 😂

Love this suggestion. It really is a great motivator.

I think getting a holiday let is a brilliant idea, that means you don’t need to set up beds on the first day, you can clean the house before moving in as well which will feel a lot nicer.

For unpacking 7 days is no problem provided you have a place for everything to go in the new place. I’d be tempted to do a bit of painting while it’s empty too.

The movers will put everything in the right room, and put furniture where you want it which is 80% of the battle with unpacking.

We moved from a 4 bed to a 4 bed and we were 90% unpacked by the end of day 1

The main thing is to ruthlessly declutter before you move and then you're not unpacking junk that you don't need.

What sorting needs to be done? I have a lot of books, I packed them away by shelf, and when the shelves were rebuilt in the new house I could just lift them out of the boxes shelf by shelf and just put them on the shelves in the order they had come off the old shelves. Maybe a couple of hours of a job?

But I do all my sorting as part of the packing process, so I spent the time rearranging them and sorting through them before they went into boxes as I had a lot of time to prep for the move, but wanted to be in and settled quite swiftly.

Phew. Thought I was on my own!

as long as you’ve enough storage in your new place, and not intending an immediate refurb or decorating, no problem.

DH has a thing about unpacking straight away, so we’ve always done it pronto. One tip: don’t procrastinate. Things like: which drawer to put things in, in the kitchen. Just put them somewhere. You can always swap things around later if you feel it’s not working how it is.

Last move was a 4 bed to a 3 bed. I unpacked everything the same day and I had a LOT of boxes! Did it on my own, too.

I was about to say this. This is not how moves work, everyone moves the same day, your house would typically need packing up the day before as you won't get keys to the new house likely til lunchtime the day of the move and you will surrender your keys to the old house before getting the keys to the new.

OP it all depends if the new house needs any different furniture due to different layouts etc. Eg if old wardrobes or bookcases don't fit in new rooms due to size of radiators or perhaps a sloped ceiling, which then means you can't unpack some stuff until those new furniture items arrive.

Absolutely. We unpacked in two days. People seemed shocked but surely you just crack on?

Sorry if repeating…
Declutter before you pack
Pack into boxes sorted and labelled with rooms in the new house that the stuff will go into and ask movers to take them to the rooms.
Deep clean new house before everything goes in if possible - as per your carpet cleaning. Much easier to wipe eg kitchen cupboards before you put stuff in them and it also means that other people can unpack the boxes straight onto the shelves. Probably less of an issue if you’re renting as it should all be clean anyway but I’ve bought houses that have been left in a horrible mess.
Get a Takker picture hanging tool from Amazon if ok to put pics up in rental property - costs under £20 and sticks tiny pins in plasterboard (there’s also a version for bricks) so you can put pictures up in minutes. This is the one thing that makes houses feel like a home to me!

I found the packers were a bit random, or rather, they used a different methodology. They packed the books by size, whereas I shelve them by genre, then subdivide alphabetically by author, so I ended up with more than 30 boxes of books that were in no kind of actual order. I had to unpack them, pile them up by author, then shuffle the piles around to establish genre sections, and only then could I start the process of actually shelving. Plus, not having anyone to help by passing books to me meant that for the higher shelves (I very short), I had to spend ages clambering onto and off chairs whilst clutching a handful of books to put away. If I ever move house again I don’t know how I will manage as I am now too past it for all of the physicality of unpacking!

Yes easily. Just take some time off work, get an excellent audiobook / podcast series, make sure you have plenty of energy (good food and sleep) and get in there and get it done.

We have unpacked a three bedroom family house in less than a week before. (The children were at school in the day.)

Easy, and we’ve always moved straight in too, slept on blow up beds the first day after a long distance move even. It’s tiring but the crucial thing is to label boxes and make sure the movers put them in the correct areas. I would start with the simplest, bathrooms, then kids rooms and then the kitchen, I had it all unpacked within 48 hours bar the boxes that then stayed for 12 years in the garage (not my stuff, ex’s)

Those unpacked boxes in the roof..... Chuck them out. If you haven't needed them, or revisited them in years, they are not vital or sentimental.

As others we're always done by day two.

Easily, although you will probably have at least a couple of boxes which sit in the garage/shed for a few years after and never get opened…

When I last moved, the removals company unloaded by the lunchtime on Saturday. By the time my DC came back from their Dad’s on Sunday night everything was in the right place, including 2 beds I’d had to build for them from scratch, so a week is much more than enough time.

It took us months to unpack too, but we had a lot of cleaning to do upon arrival (a whole day as there was a bit of mould and lots of grime), art frames that required hanging, a toddler who needed to be separated from our dog and managed, a dog to be walked, furniture to be reassembled (beds etc).

Also it depends on your packing strategy. I took a chunk off work ahead of the move to clean, sort, declutter and wrap/pack items, but ran out of time due to toddler needs. My DH took 1 day (!) and threw items randomly in supermarket & ikea bags with no labelling or sorting. Bleach in with toys and food, etc. Subsequently unpacking was a nightmare and the cause of lots of arguments (him blaming me for being too slow). Getting utilities set up took more time than expected too (we were in a dead zone for cell reception).

How the fuck are you all managing this?
I moved a month ago. I’m still kicking boxes around, furniture is in the wrong place and nothing really fits or works.

I’ve always unpacked most things in a day. Never a week!

@OptimisticReindeer do a couple of printed floor plans on which you've numbered and coloured the new rooms and if there's a garage include that too.
If you don't have time to go through what's in your loft now, which you should try to do, mark those boxes with the garage or other colour.

Put a sheet of appropriate coloured stickers in each room in your existing house. and ask the movers to put a couple of stickers on each side of box as it's packed. On moving day pin up the floor plan and refer everyone to it.

This means you won't be faced with a constant barrage of 'where do you want this'

• obviously put a note for 'do not sticker' on anything polished or items that might be damaged by this process