All your best 'moving house' tips, please....

[EdieBlizzard]

We are moving in four weeks and I am just starting to get the heebee geebees and panicking I will forget something crucial. What are the do's and don'ts ? Fancy sharing your best tips with me?! Thank you.

...bump...someone must have something to say to help my moving paralysis!

Pack a crate for the car with kettle, mugs, tea etc. Also a bag with two changes of clothes each and toiletries. That way if the removal van is held up for any reason you have essentials.

Label boxes well, I kept a little notebook to write contents of each box, it made finding things a lot quicker. I labelled them with the room and numbered them as well - but I am a bit of a control freak :)

Will definitely take an essentials crate. Also love the note book idea .... thanks :)

Get packers in

Also don't bother unhanging loads of clothes. Just fill up suit hangers and chuck them in the back seat of the car or over the boxes. That way when you get to the new house you just stick them straight in wardrobes. Pushing a small hole through the top of a bin liner also works if you don't have suit hangers.

Also have a box with moving stuff it - tape, scissors, labels, bin bags, loo rolls, etc that everyone knows where it is and keep it with you. Will be so usefull.

As soon as you get there, make the beds your priority. In my experience you'll be ready to drop at bedtime.

Oh, and LABEL the bags of nuts and bolts and allan keys that go with the beds/wardrobes/shelves unless you are keeping said bag sellotaped to that bit of furniture (glares at DH).

There was a HUGE thread about this only about 2 weeks ago. Think it was in chat.

book dog in kennels

Stick labels on doors to indicate room 1, room 2 etc and also label boxes; movers don't want to find 2nd bedroom or office in a four bed house!

We moved recently. I put different things in each box so we wouldn't have a box of just books and then a box of just pillows, for example.
I wrote 'box 1: room 6', etc, on each box and, like a pp, had a little book where I listed what was in that box.
Both tips served us really well.
We had to take a wardrobe apart that was fricking huge and had a million screws of different sizes. Once we dismantled it, I put all of them in a coffee jar clearly labelled 'wardrobe'. Stroke of genius!

There is a recent thread around with lots of tips.

Don't underestimate what you need to do in advance. I thought I was organised and left some things for the day - bad idea.

de-clutter, de-clutter, de-clutter. Then scrutinize every thing you have left and de-clutter some more.
We moved in to our current flat 10 months ago and due to work circumstances are moving again in August - I thought we had de-cluttered when we came here. In fact, we paid to move the same old junk, clothes, shoes, kitchen ware, DVDs etc that we never use or listen to or wear.
This time it is war.
Also, if you pack things yourself and pack them well then you can save a fortune - a move with packing would have cost us £1450, without it is £408, and we got all our boxes from the local book shop.
Book boxes are good as their contents are heavy so they are well made, and also they are very clean (unlike some boxes from the supermarket).

As you lift each thing to box it, ask yourself if you truly love/need it.

Start now! We also left some things to the last minute last time and it was hell. Try to get to the stage where the vast majority is packed up and just the essentials are out by the last week. Remember you will probably need to clean your house from top to bottom before you leave, so if you can pack up whole rooms and vacate them, clean them in advance this will save you time.

Echoing some points already made - definitely keep bolts/allan keys together, we didn't and have a cot bed in bits a year on that we cannot flog on Ebay till we find the bolts! Number each room and have corresponding numbered boxes to go in each room. If using removal co, keep the tea/biccies/soft drinks/ice cream coming - worked a treat for our removal co - it is such hard, physical work. Good luck!

If it's wet on moving day your removal company SHOULD put dustsheets down so they don't walk dirt in, but might not, so be prepared to do this yourself. You don't want muddy footprints all over your nice new house!

Also, make sure you have spare lightbulbs for the new house just in case previous occupants have taken them (does happen) or if you're moving to a new build, and find out in advance where stopcock, meter cupboard, fuse box is.