Packing for moving house is stressful enough at the best of times. With decluttering and organisation, getting all your belongings and furniture sorted and ready for moving day involves a lot of thinking and doing. To help you navigate through everything, we’ve listed about top 10 packing tips for moving house as well as a guide for helping you prepare for your move!
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Before You Start Packing for Moving House
If there’s one tried and tested method of reducing the stress of packing for moving house, it’s planning ahead. Preparing everything beforehand and knowing exactly what you need and when you need it is key in making sure you don’t get overwhelmed with all the stuff you have moved. You never know exactly how much stuff you have, and if you leave it too late, it can seem endless when it comes to packing it away.
When Should I Start Packing for a House Move?
Ideally, you want to start planning your move at least two months in advance of your actual moving date. Having a defined date for moving should really be the first task on your moving home checklist since you’ll be able to organise everything to fit in with that date.
When it comes to actually packing, you should start looking around for supplies around the same time, but should begin putting your belongings into boxes around a month before you leave. You should at the very least be actively sorting out your belongings in essential and non-essential piles.
Making sure you have strong and sturdy packing materials that will last your move is essential for making your belongings secure. Especially if you have a lot of antiques and valuables, you want to ensure that they won’t get damaged in transit.
Getting Packing Supplies
Home removal companies will usually provide packing materials at an extra cost, but to save money on your moving costs you should gather up some of the supplies yourself. Here’s a list of all the essential packing supplies you should get before you begin sorting everything out:
Moving Boxes
Sticky labels
Brown Packing Sellotape
Bubble wrap
Old newspapers
Marker pens
Stretch wrap
What size moving boxes should I get? You should really avoid getting larger moving boxes since they’re much more difficult to manage and take up a lot of space. Try and get standard 45cm x 45cm x 51.5cm boxes so you can pack everything away securely. For clothes, consider getting wardrobe boxes to pack everything away neatly!
Labelling your moving boxes correctly is very important so you know exactly where all your belongings are. This is good forward thinking as well since it will make unpacking so much easier when it comes to unloading.
Use the sticky labels to clearly mark the boxes you have for each room. Make sure to label your boxes with a specific label so you know what’s in the box, for example, if a kitchen box has glasses in it, add ‘glasses’ to the box. If your boxes contain valuables or hazardous chemicals, you should make sure the box is marked with a visible label.
10 Essential Packing Tips for Moving House
To make sure your packing experience is the best it possibly can be, we’ve put together our list of packing tips for moving house. This is by no means an exhaustive list of packing tips for moving house, but it covers the essentials in order to make the experience a lot smoother.
Start Packing Early
Starting to pack early really does reduce the stress of having to do it all at once the week before. This is really the most important since it saves so much time and it breaks the task up into smaller manageable chunks.
Book Removals as Soon as Possible
If you need to use a home removals service, it’s best to book them well in advance to avoid higher costs due to booking them too late. You’ll also be able to coordinate with them a lot easier since if there are any last minute changes to your plans, you’ll be able to inform them quickly.
Pack Non-Essentials First
When you start your packing, organise your clothes and appliances by seasonality. Anything that’s out of season or you don’t use as much, make those your first priority when packing up your belongings so you leave more time and you break down the move.
Get Rid of Unnecessary Items
Moving home is a great time to get rid of any rubbish or any unwanted items around the house. Have a big sweep through your home to make sure all rubbish is thrown away and anything that you don’t want any more has been donated or given away.
Pack One Room at a Time
Focusing on each room at a time will break down the move and allow you to organise your boxes better. Avoid mixing the boxes for different rooms together because this will make unpacking much longer.
Roll Up Your Clothes
This is an old trick for seasoned travellers. Rolling up your clothes rather than folding them gives you a lot more space to fit everything into your moving boxes. You can also save time on ironing since clothes get less creased than if you pack them folded up.
Don’t Leave Extra Spaces
Try not to leave any extra space in your boxes to maximise all the storage you have. This is also important since filling up the boxes with towels or paper can make them feel much more secure and the items inside will move about a lot less.
Keep Your Documents on You
Create a folder to keep all your essential documents on you. The worst thing is needing to get out a specific contract or certificate and not being able to find it. Keep them together and organised in a folder that you can carry with you.
Heavier Below, Light on Top
When loading up the moving van, remember to make sure to put all the heavier boxes on the floor before you start loading the lighter boxes. This will prevent anything getting overly squished and also maximise the space inside the van.
Organise Utilities Sooner
You should think about organising your utilities in advance of your move. Contact your energy supplier and broadband provider as soon as you know your moving date so they can make the switch quicker. Use a change of address checklist to make sure you’ve updated your address everywhere.
Decluttering is a task that comes after a lot of procrastination, but when you’re moving home it’s unavoidable. Fortunately, there are lots of ways you can declutter, and you should look to start early on before you move. Here are some ways you can get rid your unwanted stuff:
Hire a skip
Have a jumble sale
Donate old clothes
Sell items on the internet
Give items away to friends and family
How Do You Pack a House Fast?
Sometimes you might have to make an emergency move and there’s no time to plan in advance. In this case, you want to make sure you can pack everything away quickly so you can clear out as fast as you can. In this case, the packing tips for moving house are slightly different.
Purge all your unwanted items
Don’t worry about sorting out
Give away large piece of furniture
Hire professional movers
Pack an essentials bag
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How To Pack Each Room
When it comes to packing for moving house, you want to make sure you’ve got each room covered. Since every room has its own specific stuff, it’s important to remember some room-specific rules when it comes to packing your things away. This is very important as it will help you make your packing a lot simpler.
Which Room Should I Pack First?
Deciding which room to pack first is tricky since you might want to make sure you get the larger rooms done first and then move onto the smaller ones. However, you could find that you end up packing up the kitchen much sooner than you need to and you’ll be spending a lot of time taking things back out to use them.
You should start by packing up those rooms that are rarely used, such as:
Spare rooms
Loft
Cellar
Garage
Out of season clothes
Starting with these and getting them out the way soon will mean you’ll only need to load them up on the moving van and you won’t have to worry too much about them after they’re packed.
Packing Tips for Moving House for Each Room
Bedrooms
Bedrooms can be a bit tricky since they usually have an assortment of different toys, clothes and other bits and pieces in them. Make sure you get a few wardrobe boxes for the clothes and carefully labelled boxes for each room. For the bedding and mattress, use stretch wrap so it’s protected.
Living Room
The living room is often full of heavy furniture and appliances. Dismantle cabinets and drawers to ensure they can be packed up easily and remember to pack the TV safely and securely so it doesn’t break. If you have potted plants, consider transporting them in a secure container.
Kitchen
The kitchen will be your biggest room, not just for size but also the different categories. Use bubble wrap to pack away glasses so they don’t break and stack pots and pans up to create more room. Be careful with open blade knives and consider purchasing a blade protector to make sure no one gets hurt. Remember to start using food up from two weeks before your move.
Bathroom
Pack up towels and other bathroom linen tightly and remember to throw away outdated medicine or cleaning products. Be careful to ensure that nothing will leak while in transit.
Valuables
If you have any valuables that require specialist packaging, you should make sure they are packed correctly so they don’t break. Also pay attention to your jewellery so it doesn’t get tangled up and that antiques are properly insured.
Packing Tips for Loading the Van
Packing up the moving van is usually the final step when it comes to the whole moving process. Make sure you load the van correctly and let the movers help you with packing it up. make sure you load the moving van according to what you’ll need to take out first. As a general rule, you’ll want to load the heavier objects first and then your lighter boxes.
Heavy Items
Wardrobes, fridges, freezers, sofas and ovens should be loaded up first. Make sure they’re well balanced so they don’t fall down during transit.
Delicate Objects
Mirrors, televisions, and picture frames should be safely stored away after the heavier items have gone in. You should wrap these up with bubble wrap to prevent them smashing if they’re any problems.
Longer Furniture
Any mattresses or disassembled furniture you have that is longer should be stored along the sides so you leave space on the floor of the van.
Heavy Boxes
Your heavy boxes should go in next, taking up the rest of the floor. You should try and store them in any gaps so they don’t rock about on the journey.
Lighter Boxes
Your lighter boxes can then be packed into the van. Try to get them in as tightly as possible to avoid them shifting about. Use up all the available space!
Tips for Unloading and Unpacking
When it comes time to finally unload and unpack everything you’ve brought with you, if you’ve done everything in the right order, unpacking should be really straightforward. Since you would have done all the hard work beforehand, it shouldn’t be any problem to simply move your boxes into your new house and put them in the right room.
When you’ve finished moving, make sure you:
Inspect items for damage
Move each box to each room
Reassemble the furniture first
Unpack each room at a time
Unpack the bedding for the evening
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