Moving house - organisational advice please!

[sevendwarves]

Re-posting from property/DIY.

We're moving house on the 16th and I have to admit we're not the most organised people. We've decided to do it ourselves rather than use a removal firm because we're skint we're moving 1 mile and have an estate car.

We have 2 days to move, DS is staying with my mum for the 2 days and my Dad has got the time off to help us. Obviously when DS comes home on the 2nd day I want us to be as organised and finished as possible!

Any tips on being organised and (relatively) stress-free moving would be gratefully appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Start packing now.

Get as many cardboard boxes you can and plenty of parcel tape and felt pens. Label absolutely everything. Are you going to manage with an estate for the larger items? I would hire a small van to get the big white goods, sofas and beds in. Do you have a room set aside now where you can stack already packed boxes to save you tripping around them until you go?

Chuck as much away as you can. Go to large appliance stores (Comet etc.) and ask them for discarded appliance boxes. Similarly supermarkets - you have to ask because they break them down but they will usually tell you when they get deliveries in and can put aside some for a few hours.

Buy packing tape and BIG PENS to label everything.

Ditto what scurry says about a van.

Buy some ZIPLOCK bags - you need these to store the bolts from the beds which you will GAFFER TAPE to the bedframes. Do not be tempted to just sling them all in together in one big bag, you will regret it on the third night on the floor.

Enlist help from whoever you can.

Pack teastuff and lots of snacks to be taken first so you can have pitstops (INCLUDING LOO ROLLS).

No we don't have a spare room. We're moving from a shoebox one bedroom flat into a four bedroom house!

I think we should manage with our estate, our bed is a wooden flat-pack one, I don't think we'd manage without taking it apart anyway.

Label, Label, Label. It will save you so much stress and buy you time to unpack calmly.

Think about your essentials that you will need up until the 11th hour at home and will need the first day when you move. i.e. kettle, tea, coffee, mugs, a couple of plates and cutlery (even if you order takeaway), mattress, duvet, pillows, sheet, towels. I'd also keep phone book, mobile and charger, basic tool kit to hand. A couple of old sheets (if its wet) to save the carpets with all the going in and out are invaluable, basic cleaning stuff - kitchen roll, baby wipes, mop, brush, bucket, dustpan and vacuum.

Label boxes with their destination location i.e. spare diner set store in garage. It saves double handling if you've got helpers who don't know where you'd want things to go.

Have you made a utilities list for getting everything turned off - meters read and phone cut etc?

Do you want to get mail redirected you need to give a week? or so notice before a redirection can start. Its worth leaving a few big sheets of stickers with redirect to... that can be simply stuck over any stray bits of mail that turn up at your old address.

Don't just label with whats in the box, label it with which room it's going to in the new house.

Don't fill big boxes with overly heavy objects. Better 3 smaller boxes of books which you can lift than 1 huge box which requires a winch to get it off the ground.

Check the pressure in your tyres and try to balance the weight so it's not all in the back.

Have a look: here Some really good tips!!!

-I bought a huge roll of bubble wrap from warehouse shop and found it very useful

-In addition to writing down contents of boxes, you could also have a colour key system (using large round coloured stickers) for each room (easier and quicker to interpret):
green for garage
red for kitchen
blue for sitting room
yellow for master bedroom etc etc
Make a big plan of new house and stick it up in new house where you can all see it. Mark each room with appropriate colour or put appropriate coloured label at entrance to each room.

Finally, make sure you clean and clear new house within an inch of its life (and even do a spot of painting and decorating if poss) before you start moving anything in. So much quicker and easier to do this without clobber!

Good luck!

As Flylady mentions:

don't waste time and money moving clutter

try and cut down your possessions to absolute minimun BEFORE packing stage

Thanks everyone, plenty there to get me started!

My only tips are as above;

De-clutter Now! Do it room by room and be ruthless (pack what you can now in each room that you dont need)

Also Ditto with the van, we only moved about 2 streets away but we hired a Transit van (was only £45.00 for the day) and i stayed at old house and DP moved everything with his dad, brothers and BIL.

Make a list of all the companys etc you need to change address with.