Top tips for moving

[MrTrebus]

Hit me with your top tips for moving home please. I want those super tips to help us on the day and the run up to it... when we finally get a completion date whilst trying to tame my 4 month old

Moving from a 1 bed flat to a 3 bed house

Practical and impractical tips welcome....

Get one of those giant rolls of bubble wrap online, really useful for anything breakable, fragile, even things like the tv etc. And label exactly what goes in each box so you know where something is when you get to your new home and realise you need it!

And get a load of packing tape and a dispenser too!

As soon as you have exchange

• insure new place
• arrange redirect , needs a weeks notice
• arrange phone and broadband, needs more

Get rid of stuff. Then get rid of more. Start gathering boxes now.

Packers, had them for the first time last time I moved, worth every penny I paid for them. Sort through stuff having a massive clear out before they arrive.

Fragile packing service is worth many times what it actually costs. Our last lot of packers actually made a mini crate to house my one off, completed irreplaceable hand painted plate.

Blu tack numbers to the bedroom doors and any other room that might not be clear what it is. Make sure it corresponds to the numbers on the boxes.

Get rid of stuff. Lots of stuff.

If you can blu tack a plan of each room to the door too - better to have the movers put the furniture in the right place first time.

To pack bedding make the bed then put the pillows in the centre of the duvet. Pick the fitted sheet corners up and roll the bedding into a roll and use the fitted sheet bits to secure the roll. At the other end simply unroll and ta da! Bed is made.

If using removal men, number all your boxes. Then you know if one goes missing.

If moving yourself, number all your boxes and keep a note of what its each box.

You could write the contents on each box, but its a pain in the arse if you stack them and the writing is againt the wall or on top of the box, that hsd 10 boxes on top of it.

Pay for packing as well as removals. Worth every penny.

Strip beds but leave pillows and duvets in their cases and put bedding in the car - you can quickly make the beds at the other end then.

Have some plastic boxes which don't get packed on the van - one with mugs, spoons, tea, coffee, milk and a few plates; one with cleaning materials and equipment and one for things like chargers, landline phones, adaptors, torches, extension leads.

Take meter readings before you go - just take photos of the meters.

Only one piece of advice. Get rid of stuff now.

Don't pack the loo roll!

think about what you need right away in the new house - bedding for the first night. I also had curtains ready to put up, just my old ones but they were adequate till I got properly sorted - I couldn't sleep with the windows uncovered!

if you had storage before think about what you have in new house as the movers will probably ask you where to put boxes of this and that and it's good to have an answer!

agree about packers, I would have them again, and about decluttering first, although I still kept too much.

Plan well and ask for help. We were really organised and ready but had failed to realise that we couldn't be in two places at once! The removals guys had told us prior that they would pack up, have an hour for lunch then meet us at the new place. (We'd have time to check over, Hoover and dust the empty old house). Didn't happen that way - they packed a small van quickly so d h had to go to the new place with them at 10am leaving me with a million jobs to do. The large lorry was packed and wanting to go at 11.00. We never got the time we expected. Enlist help - a cleaner/ friend/famiky at the old place for an hour would be sooo useful.

Pack a suitcase as though you are (all) going away for a few nights. That way you will have clean clothes, toiletries and all the other essentials.
That means even the first morning you will be able to shower and have clean clothes. It made me feel much better knowing at least I had everything to hand to be presentable.
Likewise basic kitchen box: kettle; milk; tea and coffee; mugs; spoons. Phone for takeaways.
Did this a couple of months ago. I have to move again next month (sold house, bought house, had to rent a house to cover the short gap). Feel much more confident this time.
Tha anticipation is worse than the reality

Pay for a packing and moving service. I was amazed at how quickly and efficiently they got our house packed.

Don't pack the cleaning supplies if you plan to clean after you've packed up. Also don't pack whatever sharp implement you will use to open all the boxes at the other end.

Pack a box of the stuff you use all the time and label it "open me first".

Label the boxes with the room the contents need to be unpacked in to.

Do not label boxes "random crap" (bitter experience), as you may not actually open them at the other end for a while and quite useful stuff will probably be in them.

Get a large roll of shrink wrap. I shrink wrapped things like toy boxes with the toys still in them, small bedside draws, cutlery draw tray with cutlery still in it and piles of board games.

Don't use large boxes as they get very heavy. Those shallow fruit and veg boxes from supermarkets are good
If using removal company number the bedrooms and corresponding boxes.
Wrap breakables in towels and bedding
Get rid off all your crap now.
Do a box of things you will need straight away like kettle, loo roll.

We too moved from a 1 bed flat to a 3 bed house a couple of years ago.

1. Declutter EVERYWHERE. Even the drawers and shelves you think are tidy. There will be things hiding in there without a proper home.
2. Invest in decent packing tape and a dispenser
3. Groupon does good deals on boxes. People are often giving them away on local freebie sites too, check there before buying. We got ours third hand and passed them on again, they were fine!
4. Get a few of those big transparent boxes from Argos or similar. In run up to moving day pack these as though you were a student going off to halls: enough mugs and plates for 1 each. Paper and pencils. A screwdriver. Teabags. Etc. Add kettle on last day. Take them with you in the car.
5. Plastic shrinkable hoover bag things, put bedding in these and take in car too. Don't bother taking covers off. Easy to make bed at other end.
6. Pack boxes by room not theme. As you're moving somewhere bigger this might be difficult. What we did was make sure and leave a room empty - this was our middle sized spare room. We hadn't bought a bed yet for it and it served as a great space for sorting things. We had tons of pictures to hang and they all went in there while we decided where to put them
7. Use soft items in boxes with heavy and fragile stuff. Extra bedding in with fragile ornaments etc. This makes life easier for the movers.
8. Keep a list of roughly what's in what box and number accordingly
9. Theme rooms by colour. So, big blue post-it on all the Bedroom 1 boxes; big blue post-it on bedroom 1 door.

10. If you need any new appliances, organise to have them delivered on moving day. You're guaranteed to be in and they'll have less stuff to maneuver around. 11. Rope in friends and family on moving day- timings are never exact and you might need to leave someone behind to do a last run-through while you go to new house. 12. Check with movers, but it's usually totally fine to leave clothes in the drawers along with other light stuff. 13. When you leave, do a quick run-through with the hoover and last clean of surfaces etc. Good karma. And leave the loo roll! (but bring some with you too, in case your vendors are karma-less). Bring hoover in car too, that way it's accessible if it turns out your vendors left the place grotty.

When we moved house, DP and I had my parents and brother to help. Movers arrived at 9am and had the flat loaded onto the lorry by 11.30. We got the keys at 12 and movers were waiting outside the house for us at 12.30, had everyhing unloaded, dismantled furniture rebuilt and boxes in right rooms by 3pm. Fridge and tumble dryer arrived at 2pm. We deployed a family member to each room to start unpacking boxes as they arrived and DP and I oversaw where all the furniture went.

By 5pm it was all roughly unpacked and we had ordered a takeaway.
At 6pm a friend popped round to "give us a hand" and announced it looked like we'd been in for months!

Obviously this was dependent on my having great family including a DM who knew exactly which cupboards I'd want my mugs in and a DF who shares my DPs love of alphabetically arranging all our books

When you arrive in the new house, the first thing you do is make the beds.

That way, when you're exhausted you can just collapse.

When you are motivated and excited at the new house and all the space etc., get on and do all the unpacking, the little jobs, the buying stuff that is useful, the sorting etc., or you will be left with the 90% problem - you get things 90% done, enough to live with, unpacked well enough to make sure it all fits, etc, and then run out of steam for the last 10%. It works OK, you can find stuff, you get used to the unsorted mess and learn where stuff is, and then it ends up staying like that. For ages. And it gets harder and harder to ever get around to doing it!

Ruthlessly declutter!

Keep a box of essential items such as kettle, mugs, milk, loo roll in your car, plus bedding

Keep cleaning stuff, including hoover in you car. Don't underestimate how long cleaning takes once furniture has been moved out. We had actually hired cleaners to clean the house we were leaving but they run out of time. By then all our cleaning stuff had already been packed and was at the new house miles away. DH then had to go back to the old house and borrow our neighbours hoover/mop etc to finish the job whilst I was at the new house.

Buy enormous amounts of tea, coffee and particularly biscuits for the removal company. Ours were demanding tea every hour!

We had packers who packed everything over 2 days. In hindsight I would have preferred to pack and organise the boxes myself. Unpacking the contents was interesting. They literally pack everything and matching things (eg shoes) don't necessarily end up in the same box.

I didn't use them in the end, as we had packers, but you can buy moving house sticky labels with names of the rooms, fragile etc from Amazon/Ebay.

If you have pets, then set up a room just for them which no-one goes in on moving day.

I made up a little welcome pack of useful information for the new owners and left a bottle of wine and a cake.

Pack a suitcase as though you are (all) going away for a few nights. That way you will have clean clothes, toiletries and all the other essentials.

Yes! Clothes, knickers, socks, bedsheets, toiletries and loo roll. And another bag with long life milk, cereal, bowls, spoons, mugs and coffee/tea - I found this the most helpful thing, could wake up the next morning and feel vaguely normal.

I packed things that I knew could remain boxed up for awhile separate from things I knew i'd want sooner. Seasonal clothing, spare bedding, vinyl, books, cushions, decorations, etc., because we were redecorating the whole house, including walls and flooring and built in shelving, and I didn't want to shift things more than once. So we designated spaces for those boxes to be stored.

We've moved A LOT. Including internationally. And we've always done it ourselves. We got a pretty good system going whereby in the weeks leading up to the move, we begin to 'shut down' rooms of the house, starting with the least necessary - like office/spare room/en suite. The room is decluttered, packed up and then cleaned from floor to ceiling. Then the door is shut and no one uses it again.

Buy a pack of coloured stickers.

As you pack boxes allocate a coloured sticker to each box to prioritise when to open them.

High priority (items such as kettle, mugs, bath towels, bedding)

Medium priority (more kitchen items, toiletries, medicines etc)

Low priority (ornaments, photo frames etc)

Declutter, recycle, give away and throw away. Get free boxes from supermarkets or free cycle or pay small amounts. Pack boxes couple of weeks before you move with labels on and which room they will go into. Make a box for things you will need on the day eg kettle, drinks, food, toilet rolls, change of clothes, mobile phone charger, bin bags, pen and paper, cash. Give utilities notice that you are moving, pay to have post redirected. Don't under estimate how much time it takes to move, start preparing early!