The entire moving process can be extremely long, between the initial offer being accepted right the way through to completion date. The solicitors seem to take forever, the mortgage lender can really drag their feet, and the surveys can identify problems, and if you are part of a larger chain, then there are a million things that can slow the process down. After many months of paperwork and stress, you have finally been issued a completion date and time of exchange of contracts, and you are relieved to be finally moving into your new home.
So the actual move itself needs to be planned as carefully as possible, to help organise everything and make the move go as smoothly as you can. The speed of the move will depend on how organised you are. You have to plan the removal van hire, or removal company hire depending on your choice. You might need to arrange for friends or family to help you with the move if you are hiring a van too, and you’ll need to prepare the packaging materials for your move as well, which will include moving boxes, bubble wrap, strong tape, as well as packing tissue paper and wardrobe boxes. After you have moved comes the tedious task of unpacking, which you usually want to go as fast as possible because you won’t want to take too many more days off work and you’ll want to settle into your new home. So how exactly can you unpack as quickly as possible?
Preparation
- Organisation is the number one factor which will enable you to unpack quickly in your new home, and there are lots of things you can do in advance which will make the unpacking process much faster and easier.
- When it comes to packing your moving boxes near me in your old home, make sure you write on the outside of each and every box to say what you have packed inside. Don’t just write the room of the house that the box belongs (although this is important as well), but make sure you list the items inside the box too. This will mean that when you are unpacking the removal van, you’ll know which room of the house to place that box, and when it comes to unpacking the boxes, you’ll know which objects are in which boxes so you can decide which items need to be unpacked first. This is very important as it can become very overwhelming if you have hundreds of boxes in your new home with no clue where anything is!
- You should prioritize which rooms of the house are the most important for daily life, and therefore which boxes need to be unpacked first. The kitchen and shower are the first places you will probably need to survive in your new property, so it is a good idea to start with these. There is no point starting with your clothes in the bedroom for example, if that evening you need to cook and brush your teeth and have nothing available for that.
- When it comes to unpacking the removal van, make sure that you don’t just stick all the boxes in one room. Make the effort to place each box in the room that it belongs, because this makes unpacking much easier, simpler and faster. It only takes a minute more to do, but is well worth the trouble.
- You might have friends or family helping you to move, but you should unpack boxes for moving yourself, so that you know exactly where you have put everything. It is a new house, and you won’t be familiar with the drawers and cupboards available, so this will take time to get used to. If you unpack yourself, you’ll have a better idea and will get settled earlier.
- You should plan where you are going to put all of your things in the new home before you move in. You should get a floor plan of the new house, showing each and every room. You can get this from the estate agent. You can then plan where your furniture is going to go, and where your chest of drawers, cupboards and wardrobes are going to be. You can mark on the plan where any fitted drawers and cupboards are too. You can then plan exactly where you want to put all of your things, and this will enable you to unpack much faster as you won’t spend much time opening a box and then having to think about and plan where you want the contents to go.
- Once you have emptied a box, it is a good idea to flat pack the box and put it out of the way, so that your house does not get too cluttered with empty boxes. They will only get in the way and slow you down. (Buy moving boxes online).
- If you are unsure of anything, or don’t know where to put the contents of a specific box, you could put that into storage in the garage or attic to begin with, and leave it until a later stage when you have a better plan of where you want things to go. Don’t waste time.
- Do the simple things well. If you are unpacking a box which is full of kitchen cooking equipment, place the box close to the cupboard where the contents are going to go, and then unpack them as fast as you can. Don’t leave the box on the other side of the kitchen and removal one frying pan at a time, as this will take much longer.
- To help you to decide where you want all of your household possessions to go in the new home, it could be worth taking a trip to revisit the new property to help you to plan everything.