- Start packing long before you move, there’s a lot you can live without in the medium term, so get packing!
- Get many more boxes than you think you’ll need, ask around and search on the web for second hand boxes, you will also need tape and lots of paper to wrap your things.
- THROW THINGS OUT! Take a look around your house and throw as much out as you can. If you need help and guidance making your home more tidy and to help you sort through your things, call @tutto.tidy, Lisa will help you find what brings you joy and what should leave your life permanently, move light!
- Accept help from friends, ask for help from friends, but make sure you understand what the agreement is. My friends very kindly said they would help my move, but we had to change the date because of bad weather and they were no longer able to help as much as they would have, this meant my boyfriend and the workers who we hired for cheap had to pick up the slack. The move went ahead, but the lack of at least a couple more people made it so much harder.
- Understand and talk about what your different roles are in the move. My boyfriend thought I was “upstairs doing nothing” when I was packing up my computer, closing up boxes, and organising the mess of the house, while they carried things outside. It makes sense people understand that as the owner of all the stuff that is leaving the house, you want to protect it and make sure the house is ok as it all leaves.
- Label your boxes well! I let my son label a lot of his bedroom boxes and one of them said “toys and stuff”…not very helpful if you’re looking for something specific afterwards.
- If you have IKEA furniture, and you take it down, make sure you keep all the nooks and crannies related to them safe and labelled! I moved over a week ago and I have a bed I can’t put together because I can’t find any of the screws…
- Try to get the movers to take the items, be them boxes or furniture, to the room they will live in the new house. This will make your life so much easier when you unpack. Maybe stick a paper to every door in the new house to match the boxes arriving, so they make their way to the right room.
- Get help unpacking! Your kind friends can be called upon again, this time to help you unpack and put furniture together. You’re human, it’s ok to need help.
- Have a Swiss army knife, seriously, it’s a life saver!
- Thank people, thank people and thank them again. If you do rely on your friends to move, make sure you thank them profusely, make some grand gesture, take them for an expensive meal, buy them a balloon ride, do whatever you can to show how much you appreciate all the help they gave you.
- Finally, accept your new reality: moving houses is hard, moving cities is harder, moving countries is crazy! Accept you may be living with boxes for longer than you’d like, because you have to work out where the nearest supermarket is and you need to feed yourself, and maybe your family. Accept that the house may be very different from what you had back home, but nothing is permanent and you’ll either adapt, or move again… Accept the mess, work around it and take the time to do at least one nice thing for yourself every day, that is unrelated to moving or packing, and you’ll keep yourself sane in the process.
Moving home
The best way to move is to book your movers, who will pack everything for you, pack yourself a couple of suitcases, check into a lovely hotel and let the magic happen. Yes, I know a couple of moving companies and many clients who can move this way, but the rest of us mortals need to do most (if not all) of the heavy work ourselves. How should you go about it? Well, having just moved home myself, still sitting in my office with boxes around me, I can tell you even I made some silly mistakes, it was a learning, gruesome experience, that will pay off in time.
Here’s some top tips from my recent DIY move to help your move run smoother: