Get Organised for Moving Houses

Get Organised for Moving Houses

• January 31, 2019

Whilst I'm not moving houses anytime soon, I have done it so many times in my life and the best thing you can do to minimise stress is to get organised with a timeline of tasks, as soon as you know you're going to be moving. I recently helped a friend out with said tedious task and as she was planning on moving countries, the first thing we did was to reduce and get rid of her belongings as much as possible. This absolutely works even if you are just moving down the road, offloading and moving 'light' is essential.

1) Sell Large Furniture
As soon as you have a move-out date, sell any unwanted furniture. These take up the most space whether you're doing removals yourself or hiring someone to do it. Of course you should keep the furniture you want and love, but now is a good time to say goodbye to the sunken in sofa or the knackered dining table. I tend to use Shpock for selling furniture and ask buyers to collect. It's like a free removals service for you plus you get to pocket some money.

2) Declutter By Category
Clothes always seem to take up the most room, so go ahead with the brilliant KonMari method of bringing every single item of clothing you own and pile it onto your bed. Then shift through each item and keep only the items that you love and will wear, or have some sort of functionality. Whatever you're left with goes in the unwanted pile which you can easily sell in bundles on eBay or Shpock. I always bundle items up like all tshirts/tops in similar sizes, trousers in similar sizes etc and sell them cheaply like £5 a bundle of 6 tops, or £10 for 8 pairs of trousers. These always sell well for me. You can then declutter shoes/bags/coats to complete the clothing category, and then move onto the next category such as paperwork/magazines/books and then kitchenware etc.   

3) Write A Checklist
Organising yourself as much as possible beforehand is key to a stress free move, so write a checklist of all the things you need to do, such as mail redirection service, notifying utility providers and changing home insurance. Just being able to tick things off your checklist will leave you feeling satisfied and in control.

4) Pack Away Unused Items In Advanced
Now that your home is lighter and purged of belongings and you know exactly what you need to do for the move, start packing away items you don't need for the foreseeable future. This is the perfect time to box up books, photo albums, DVDs, party crockery, and seasonal clothes etc, leaving you with only things you need to use leading up to moving day.

5) Sticky Pads On All Your Boxes
Group items into the same boxes as much as possible, and store by room. So, all the books in the same box/boxes, and labelled with "Living Room - Books" using bright sticky pads. This will make unpacking much easier once you move into your new home.

6) Arrange Removals
Book a removals company to help with the move. Previously I've tried doing the moves myself and ended up making more than 8 runs in my car to complete it. Not only did this take me a full day of driving from morning until evening, with lots of loading and unloading, I still spent a fair amount on petrol and it left me scrubbing the old flat until early hours of the morning. To say I was knackered is an understatement and it's just not worth it, especially now that I have a toddler in tow.

7) New Home Memento
No matter how many times you've moved house before, each one is symbolic so get yourself a new home keyring to celebrate! I've bought this wood slice plaque for friend's housewarming too which was well received.

I hope you found these tips useful on how to get organised for moving houses!

This is a collaborative post. Image source