Moving house can be immensely exciting, but also terribly stressful. Many a family has been embroiled in last-minute packing frenzies or opened their moving boxes to discover hundreds of shards of pottery. Thankfully, there are a few very easy ways to take the stress out of a move.
Give Yourself Plenty Of Time
One of the commonest mistakes made by people moving house is leaving it until the last minute. Giving yourself three weeks to organize your belongings, contact movers and ensure that everything is in order with your utility providers is a good idea. Set aside at least an hour or two each night to work on moving tasks.
Give Yourself A Holiday From The Kids
If you are moving with the kids, it might be worth packing them off for a week during the most stressful parts of the process. Kids are curious and messy – which isn’t usually too much of a bad thing. These attributes can rather complicate a house move, however. If you have any relatives or family friends in the area not might be the time to call in a favor.
Hire Some Professionals
Calling in some professional movers is a great idea if you have any kind of budget for your move. Experienced movers know how to keep items safe and have the correct insurance just in case anything goes wrong. If you’ve ever attempted to move a sofa into a new house, you’ll know that hiring in the professionals is the right thing to do.
Move Light
Consider following the advice of tidiness guru Marie Kondo and ditching your unnecessary items. You don’t have to start your new life with your new home being as cluttered as your last one.
This doesn’t mean that you should throw away all of your possessions. There is a terrible crisis of accumulation occurring, with junk piling up in landfills all around the world. Throwaway culture is poisoning our planet. Instead, you should consider donating your unwanted or extraneous items to worthy causes. Thrift stores are always looking for good quality donations of clothes, books and furniture. Homeless and refugee charities are usually extremely happy to redistribute your old things to the people that need them the most.
Protect Your Belongings
It’s highly likely that you have some rather cherished treasures in your home. Crockery, jewelry and antiques have a habit of breaking in transit if not packed correctly. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to ensure that your precious breakable items arrive at your new home in one piece.
Traditionally, newspaper has sufficed as a low cost packing material. Scrunch up some old newspapers and tightly nest your breakable items in it. Check out this handy guide to packaging crockery in paper published by The Spruce.
Alternatively, specialist packaging materials can be purchased that more effectively encase your objects. Recycled packaging peanuts are a great way of ensuring that more valuable items are kept safe without costing the earth a huge amount.