A couple of week’s ago when Lily and I were sitting on the tube discussing all things weddings, blue nail polish and blogging like we usually do, I was also bombarding her with advice on how to survive a move, which she helpfully pointed out would make a good idea for a post. So thanks Lily. This one’s for you…
Right. Moving *takes a deep breath*. It’s somehow become like the ‘D’ word around these parts (‘D’ for dissertation you naughty wotsits! I got so stressed about mine that everyone I knew was banned from talking to me about it for at least two years after it was handed in – I’ve still to this day never re-read it). I thought moving would be a walk in the park. ‘We haven’t even got that much stuff!‘, I’d exclaim, ‘I don’t think we’re going to bother renting a van, we’ll just throw it all in the car!‘. Instead we had around 22 boxes worth of our posessions and ended up filling a transit van to its maximum potential. We could barely even close the door. There you go, that’s my first point there – you own WAY more than you think you do. Now we’re on the other side of it all, with that wonderful thing called hindsight, I can see what we did right, wrong and what we were horrendously underprepared for. If you’re moving anytime soon then have a read. It might save you a crying session or two…
1. YOU OWN WAY MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU DO. (See above). If you think you need 20 boxes, buy 30. Or else you’ll be sending your other half down to Argos for more on your moving day.
2. START ORGANISING EARLY. Due to the nature of packing you’ll end up tidying things and re-organising as you go. However if you’ve started to do this a few months or weeks before there’s not so much of an urge to clear-out as you pack stuff up. It just makes the whole thing a lot quicker and saves those ‘Do you really want to keep your ukulele? You haven’t played it for the three years that we’ve lived here’ moments. Side note: we kept the ukulele.
3. SET UP A REDIRECTION. In the midst of moving paperwork the last you thing you want to be doing is changing your address on your Boots Advantage Card. Set-up a redirection with the Post Office before you move (I think they recommend you do it about a month-ish before and you can pick when you want it to start) and it just means you can save all the address changing-shenanigans till you’ve got a spare moment.
4. GET THE NECESSARY FURNITURE. If you’re starting from scratch furniture-wise, I’d recommend picking up what you need slowly and steadily. In terms of what you really, really need – you need a bed, mattress and some kind of seating. We had fold-up camping chairs that did us for a couple of weeks. Sofas take an age to come, so it’s worth ordering that as soon as you know a move-in date, but with everything else it’s good to get an idea of what you need in each room before you go wild in IKEA. Have a think – then go mad in IKEA.
5. DON’T START PACKING THE DAY BEFORE. Been there, done that and let me tell you, kitchens are the enemy here because they take hours to sort out. I think I spent about six hours boxing up the contents of our old one. This was the cause of my first crying episode during the move.
6. PACK BOXES WELL AND LABEL CLEARLY. Mark was a stickler for taping up the boxes on every single flap on the bottom – I think we went through about five rolls of tape – but it actually paid off and meant that we didn’t have any ‘contents of box falls out of the bottom’ moments. Tape up people! It’s also worth labelling your boxes well. We ended up putting what was in the box on the side, along with what room we wanted it in. Do this on all four sides of the box too so you can always see the description no matter what way it’s packed.
7. DON’T SAY NO TO HELP. If your Mum and Dad offer to cook you dinner. Thank them and eat away. If your mate says they’ll help you paint. Thank them and feed them brownies while they do it. If Domino’s have a 2-for-1 deal on. Thank them and eat Domino’s on your first night in your new place because it’s practically tradition.
8. SANDWICH BAGS ARE YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND. Now this one goes to all my beauty junkies out there. Sandwich bags rule and make for a much easier to grab way of keeping all your makeup and beauty bits in one box. The large ones work the best and makeup-aside they’re fab for keeping cables with electrical items (bag ’em up and stick them on the side of your TV or whatever) or just grouping together small annoying things to you need to take.
9. HIRE A VAN. Unless you have a tiny, uni-room size amount of stuff then I’d highly recommend getting a van for the big move or hiring professional help if you’ve got furniture to move. Being furniture-less, but box heavy we ended up getting a van for two days. One to fill it, the other to drive to our new place and unload it. Make sure you’ve got enough buffer time for when you need to drop it back too.
10. TAKE PICTURES. Especially if you’ve been living in rented accommodation, take pictures of the place how you left it. Not only is it a nice thing to look back on, but it means if there’s any hassle over damage deposits you’ve got a few pics to whip out.
Anything you’d add moving maestros? Pop it below…
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