A friend of mine is moving house in the next couple of weeks and asked me to my share my moving day tips, hence today’s post where you all have the joy of hearing my tuppence. It’s now been over three months since we changed address and after the stress building up to exchange I can tell you the day of the move was actually a piece of cake.

As we were at the bottom of the short chain we completed on the sale of our cottage around 9.30am and the sale of the new house went through in the early afternoon. Our buyers weren’t planning on moving in straight away so we had plenty of time to manoeuvre from one property to another. The weather was quite frankly balmy for a December day and so we had a couple of factors on our side. I appreciate this isn’t the case for everyone though.

Have a clear-out

After being introduced to the Marie Kondo method last year, I wanted to hire a skip and throw half of my possessions away. I was hoping preparing to move would give me an ideal opportunity to have a mighty clearout and get rid of the hoards of paraphernalia I had accumulated. However with my Mum being poorly I was spending most of my spare time back in Sheffield so we never got round to the mammoth elimination and let me tell you now, I really wish we had. I’m still unpacking boxes of complete tat which should have been sent to the charity shop a long time ago.

Consider hiring packers

As mentioned above our spare time was sparse during the autumn so my ears pricked up when someone in the office mentioned hiring professional packers through the a removals company. A google search brought me to a well-known parenting site usually known for it’s polarising views however on this instance there was no marmite involved. Every single person was in praise of the packers.
I’m not going to lie, it’s not cheap. I still can’t afford a new sofa because of it but it was without a doubt the best grand (and a bit) we have ever spent. James worked from home the day before the move and I went off to the office. Nine hours later I returned back to our cottage to find most of it neatly packaged in boxes with James still typing away on his laptop.

Bring in a friend

My super friend Ellie offered to help us with the move and it was fab to have someone to throw in a bit of elbow grease as we completed the final clean of the house. She undoubtedly made the day far more breezy and thanks to the packers/removal men and all their handiwork, we spent most of the day chatting. As Ellie had recently relocated she also understood it can be a bit emotional and very patiently waited in the car while we said goodbye to the old house and got a bit giddy embracing the new. Sadly she’s not available for hire but I strongly advise bringing in the troops to spread the load.

Last out-first in box

In our case this was a large wheelie suitcase housing all the essentials we needed to keep back until the last minute which would be immediately needed at the new house; practical bits like cleaning products, bed linen, towels, loo roll and the absolute utter essentials – champagne flutes and a bottle of bubbly.

Keep fed and watered

I nipped to Waitrose the night before moving day to stock up on sandwiches, fruit, nuts, nakd bars and water as I knew we needed to keep our energy up all day. I’m prone to getting ‘hangry’ and wanted to try my best to avoid this for everyone’s sake. The day obviously ended with an obligatory takeaway (not least because we had a gaping hole for an oven).

Do you have any gems of wisdom you’d like to add to get a stress-free moving day? Any tales you’d like to share of when the big move didn’t quite go to plan? If you’re not quite ready for moving day then do visit us here and take a gander at our archives for features on selling houses, exchanging contracts and buyer basics.
Oh and another thing, I’ve noticed lots of comments on our Instagram post about the wallpaper in the middle picture above. It’s the graphite version of Prestige Textiles polka dot wallpaper which you can buy from John Lewis. You are most welcome.