What things do you wish you had done before moving in?

[Rooners]

We're in the process of getting our first house - well it is a flat, but it's lovely, and I think there is going to be an overlap between living here and having access to it.

I really don't want to end up with bits of wall I haven't painted because they are behind cupboards. again So am going to paint the walls - but is there anything else you would do, in hindsight, before actually moving in to a place?

I'm already packing furiously here - getting rid of quite a lot of things - and making sure the stuff we use, and the stuff that's just decorative clutter like my old jug collection is separate so we can keep it all stashed in the attic and live more sort of minimalistically.

ha, like we ever could but seriously - what would you do to make the whole thing go more smoothly?

Put curtains up so you don't have to worry about them on your first night in the house.

Put the heating on and play with the controls so you know how they work.

Sort utilities, council tax, phone line, internet and changing address with the bank etc-the stuff that takes hours on the phone and is a pain in the arse to worry about while surrounded by boxes.

paint the ceilings and sand the floors before any soft furnishings go in.

Get it rewired now if needs be - we moved into our house in april and didn't realise the light switches were all in the wrong place till the clocks went back... And there are no sockets. I would rectify this if we hadn't already decorated.

Clean carpets.

Use indorax spray if they've had pets.

Thankyou for these excellent tips.

Don't think there have been pets there but good thinking...also it's being done over by a spark as some of the electrics are a bit shot.

So all that - and a new boiler, some heating system/water and gas stuff is being sorted in the next couple of months.

I plan to clean everything well - lots of laminate floors, which shouldn't be too hard, and the carpets there are are coming out so will see how the boards are then maybe replace carpet or have them bare.

Have decided to leave old carpets there till I've painted, then take them up. It's all got to be kind of done in the right order hasn't it?

I'm not sure if I'll have time to paint the ceilings but will see how bad they are when I go back for a proper look/measure up etc.

Not helpful, but this is what I wish I checked.

Council tax band
That it had a water meter
The age of the bathroom (yes I could see it was oldish) but with the problems it had...
Same with kitchen
Finally the bloody heating system - it was ancient and needed to be replaced

It's an absolute stunning house in a gorgeous location. The house was immaculate - but everything was old

I wish I had run the drain auger down the pipes before we moved in. Not that it is ridiculously hardor messy, but it takes time, and can be gross. I also wish we'd had a proper look at the lighting- we had to buy a hole heap of lamps as some rooms have no lights in the ceiling.

Will you be able to get the carpets out without touching the new paintwork if you leave them down whilst you redecorate? Also, are you keeping the skirting? If yes, it would be better to remove carpets before painting them?

Paint ceilings, then walls, then remove carpets (but leave underlay), paint skirting, remove underlay.

I wish we'd checked the number/layout of plug sockets. Our predecessors had been in the house 30-odd years and had the bare minimum of sockets, a fact which passed us by until we were actually in.

You say it's a flat - might it need any soundproofing?

I have never had the luxury of such an interval and can't think of anything we haven't easily coped with. I suppose re-plastering can cause a lot of dust.

For painting, keep the old carpet down as you say but cut about an inch of carpet around the outside of the room so that you can paint the skirting properly.

Make a lighting plan and have your home wired accordingly. This requires you to think through where you will put all your furniture and electrical goods = hard work!

Work out which rooms face which direction and repaint in appropriate colours.

Replumb.

Kitchens can wait IME - they are quick and easy to replace.

I wish we had sanded the floors! We have done it now but it was SUCH a pain in the arse once all our stuff was in here.

Thankyou all so much. If it had a lot of bare boards then I'd definitely sand them, but as most of it is laminate then I think I'll leave it for now - it looks to have been pretty neatly done, I've seen some awful examples! Also it does provide soundproofing for downstairs I suppose, so maybe once the children are older I might take it up and do the boards.

Good point about the skirting but as Selfies says, I kind of meant the walls and ceilings - woodwork I'll do carefully once the carpets are up. I hate painting woodwork

I suppose you're right about the kitchen, but it does need a bit of rejigging, basically there doesn't seem to be a washing machine anywhere though the particulars say there's a connection - there is a dishwasher which I don't require, and also, no gas point for the cooker. Just electric.

So I'm planning to have the washing machine in the bathroom (next to kitchen, hope that will be fairly easy) as the kitchen is pretty small and the bathroom is larger...and for want of a futility room, I kind of don't like having dirty clothes and nappies in the kitchen iyswim.

And we need to ditch the immersion tank and put in a combi boiler, (old boiler is knackered) and as it has no attic as such, the water tank is in a cupboard on the top landing and I'm not convinced that's very modern. plus I want it for storage. Need to see about that.

Electrics want a bit of updating, I haven't counted sockets but that is a good point. I have however lived in a house with a 5x3 metre kitchen which had TWO double sockets. That wasn't too much of an issue as I don't cook much... but anyway I will check.

Have made a note of window aspects for the rooms and am working through my 'that is a bargain, no idea where I will use it' paint collection as we speak

Where on earth would anyone use F&B cooks blue? Any thoughts? It's a 5l tin but was £3 so I was obliged to buy it. Hmmmm. If I can't find a home for it then it's up for grabs to anyone local who likes blue.

Oh yes - good one about the drains, too, I think the survey was meant to cover that but not got report yet.

And I want to put in a second washbasin up on the top floor where the children are going to live. Has anyone done this? There's only one bathroom on the 1st floor, and nothing else, and I have visions of it getting a bit crowded with three boys and me.

In that case can you put a sink and loo in? Wouldn't cost much more to have the loo too (the cost will be getting water pipes up there) and that'll cover most emergency ablutions!

I would def make sure there is Internet there!!

I'd definitely emphasise the socket thing - even if you're not much of a cook (and that can change), the number of things that need charging seems to grow at the rate of knots in this house.

very good point about things needing charging. I hadn't thought of that. Thankyou.

Kitten, I think I had assumed that internet is good there as there seem to be several home companies in the road, you know, like run from home type businesses so I assume they must have a fairly decent speed. It is urban so that's good. Though I'd rather be out in the wilds myself but while the children are at school they seem to want to be in town!

I thought about a loo as well, but think it might take up quite a lot more room because you'd need walls and a door to it iyswim - whereas a sink can just be open to the room. The bedrooms up there are big, but I don't want to lose too much space to an actual cloakroom type thing...I don't know, will see how it pans out once I've seen it again.

But I think an extra sink will be quite useful at least.

We had just over one week to get our new house ready before moving in.
I did:

white out most of all the badly painted in hideous colours walls
Got DS's and DD's room and living room painted
painted skirtings
Had carpets laid in every room except our bedroom
Sorted out gas and electric
Sorted all our crap and threw loads away
Bought new beds for DD's and us

What I wish I had done:
Painted the ceilings(I just didn't have time)
Tackled the bathroom, it is tiny and hideous, a black bathroom which was shoddily painted white which is now peeling off.
Cleaned the windows, they were absolutely filthy
Put up curtains in our room, a 4am wake up call from the sun was not a good idea.
Got the address and postcode right, then our gas and electric would of been sorted in one day not one week

Six months in and all the decorating has still not been finished due to lack of time, money and motivation

I hope you enjoy your new home

oh thanks Debs...I had a week here as well, when we moved in and it was awful - I'd sneaked round and planted things in the garden as the place was empty, but couldn't get into the house which was desperately unfair because it was a pit and really needed doing.

We stripped out all the filthy carpets, I oiled the floor in one room, got cheap carpet in the big bedroom. No time to decorate at all. We also tried to clean the kit and bathrooms but they were shockingly bad.

At least the new place seems normal, you know, liveable in! I never want to go through that again, not with a baby crawling about in all the dirt, it was terrible.

Hope you get your place sorted out properly at some point so you can really enjoy it.

Windows! Yes will need to clean those - and try and make sure we can open them, there's a cracked pane in one, some of the others apparently are a bit stiff and need repairing. They are old sashes - lovely but I think they will have to wait.

A lot of good points covered, so this is just some simple comfort stuff.

Depending on whether your bringing current appliances, new ones or integrated, make sure they're all clean and prepared for use. Eg, new ovens need to be turned on for something like a half hour empty and then left to cool to burn of chemicals (or something along those lines), fridge freezer needs to get to temperature, old ovens should have a full clean etc. Book a grocery delivery, or at least do a run for basics for the day or day before that you plan on moving in. Basically have a functioning kitchen!

Make sure you have hot water, not just running water. Although it's been said, definite yy to making sure you know how to use the heating!

If you can, spend some time there in the late evening. Unless you already know the place very well, certain things aren't apparent until the evening. Gives you a bit of a heads up of what to expect if you're there late in the day.

Move stuff in slowly, if you can. Not really a prep thing, but it makes it easier to move things around as you like and make sure you have what you really want and need in the space.

Don't take what you don't need or love. Chances are you may need to get some new stuff at some point that fits the space so don't try to fit in awkward stuff, unless it's something really needed (like the sofa or bed!).

We took a few inches off the carpets around the edge so that we could paint the skirting properly. Meant we had carpet (warmer) but access to the edges!

Test the oven! We didn't then found when we moved in that it hadn't ever been connected!

Thankyou both - I need to clean my oven now, let alone when we move

Good point about not trying to fit in stuff that won't. I did that before. This time I've made sure that most of the good stuff we have will actually fit into the house, and other things that won't fit are on the list to be given away or whatever.

I've sort of chosen the house to fit around what we have iyswim. I hope so anyway - might get there and find the sofa won't fit up the stairs...!