Moving house is a difficult process with lots to organise and think about. When you have finally been given a completion date, after many months of back and forth with paperwork, solicitors, mortgage advisors and the negotiation that goes with it, it can seem like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders. So now you have to think about the actual move itself.
Keeping things organised is the key to a successful move; planning is everything. The more you plan and organise, the smoother the move will go and the easier it will seem. Here are our top tips for organising your house move:
- Firstly, always give yourself plenty of time and start packing long before the removal date. We recommend buying cardboard packing boxes for moving house at least four weeks before the completion date, and start packing two weeks before the completion date. This will give you plenty of time to pack up each and every room of your house bit by bit and organise everything effectively. Do not leave packing until the last minute; you certainly don’t want to be packing on the actual removal day itself because there are so many other things to do and it takes long enough to pack a removal lorry without having to pre pack your belongings into boxes first.
- Our second and arguably most important tip of all is to write on the outside of each box that you pack up with your belongings, to say which objects you have put into that box, which room of the house it belongs, and whether it contains fragile items or not. You can write this information using a marker pen on the outside of any normal brown cardboard box. This will help to keep the entire move as organised as possible, and ensure that unpacking is very easy in your new home to make things go as easily as possible. It also prevents breakage as the removal men will know which cardboard storage boxes for moving house are fragile and therefore which ones to look after the most during transit. They will also be able to help you unpack and know which rooms to put each box in your new home.
- Always use bubble wrap and packing tissue paper to protect the most delicate objects that you pack up into boxes. This will include glasses and mugs from the kitchen, ornaments from the living room and pictures from the walls, including mirrors too. It is not worth risking them and it only takes a few seconds to wrap them in bubble wrap first. Bubble wrap is very cheap to buy so it is well worth the trouble.
- Always use strong packing tape to secure the cardboard boxes for moving UK shut, to ensure that they don’t open during transit. Make sure you use strong adhesive tape that is 48mm wide. Normal tape from a supermarket will not do.
- Buy boxes from an online specialist house moving packaging specialist, as they will have a huge range designed for that very purpose at the lowest prices with next day delivery. Boxes are impossible to find on the high street and no supermarkets give away second hand boxes like they used to.
- When packing the removal lorry, always put the largest cardboard boxes for moving house into the lorry first, followed by the smaller boxes second. The reason for this is because you will be able to fit more boxes into each load of the lorry, as smaller boxes can fit into smaller gaps to use up each and every bit of space available. Larger boxes are also likely to be heavier, so putting them at the bottom of the pile is going to help prevent breakage and damage too.
- When you order boxes they will arrive flat packed and they don’t take up much room in your house before you use them in storage. This ensures you can buy them with plenty of time before the packing process begins, knowing you have them ready to go.
