Moving home can be an anxious time even if you have left the main removal worries to a responsible and reliable company like man and van. Here are some tips which you might find useful to help in preparing a major shift out of your old home.
Leave behind everything which is not really needed any more. This is a good time to sort out all the old, broken and never used things that are simply going to cost more to move and won’t be needed when they reach your new home anyway. You can always give things away to a charity or op. Shop which are still in good condition. Your old curtains and maybe your carpets, even if they are still in good condition may simply not fit in your new home, so think about leaving them behind too! Some things can always be put in storage, but only if you will really still want them in a year or two’s time.
Packing is so much easier with a few more helping hands. Get the family involved if you have one and any friends too. Just make sure that the refreshments are ready to hand to act as an incentive!
Start collecting boxes well before the time for packing. Collect boxes from anywhere and everywhere you can get hold of them and make sure they are of different sizes. They need to be in good condition and should be able to be closed up and sealed with tape for easy handling during the move. Any boxes that have been used to carry glass containers – like wine bottles for instance- tend to be sturdier than average and are excellent for removals boxes.
Make sure that you have a decent assortment of marker pens for marking the box contents clearly – what’s inside and how breakable the contents might be and whether there is a right or wrong way up to sit them.
With the box collection should be added wrapping paper. Tis can be ordinary newspapers – just have plenty of them. Newspapers tend to lose their ink on the surface of anything inside, so make sure that if you do use newspaper that the objects you wrap up can be easily cleaned off afterwards. Special packing paper or corrugated paper can be obtained from your removals company and tissue paper or kraft paper can be bought at a stationers or large supermarket or department store. Bubble wrap should be used for especially vulnerable items.
When labelling your boxes, why not use a colour coding system? You can buy cheap stickers from a stationer and you can use a colour coded sticker for your kitchen stuff, another for bathroom, bedroom, living room items and so on. If you are really organised, it pays to number the boxes and make up a master list which records what is in what box. This is particularly handy when everything arrives in the new home and you are thinking of the order you are going to unpack everything!
Keep your boxes as small as possible. You will obviously need more boxes, but at least they can be more easily handled and stored.
When you come to do the actual packing, start early, with the sorts of things that you don’t use often like stored items in cellars, sheds and the attic. Pack room by room so that you can keep the contents of each room in separate boxes. Being better organised means that you sweat and stress less!