Moving house can be an incredibly stressful experience. Although you will be looking forward to the adventure that a fresh start can bring, you will no doubt be dreading the logistical nightmare of moving your possessions from one property to another.
Of course, the difficulty of a house move is in different for everyone. If you are living alone in a flat and are moving into a larger house nearby, you will find it far more straightforward than if you have a family of five young children trying to move halfway across the world.
However, it doesn’t matter who you are or how many resources you have at your disposal; going through the moving process requires a steady head and a strong plan of action.
For example, you will need to work out what you are taking with you to your new property, and what you will leave behind or sell. This can be an emotionally intense experience in itself, because you will likely have many items which you have a strong sentimental attachment to, but no longer need.
What’s more, once you have worked out what you are keeping, you will then have to find a way of transporting your possessions safely and quickly, at a minimal cost. Of course, it is rare that a house move proceeds without complication, which is why you will likely have to store your furniture somewhere while you wait for your new property to become available.
These are just some of the obstacles facing you when you move house, and if you don’t have the budget to sit back and allow a removal company do all the logistical planning and heavy lifting for you, it is vital that you approach the move in the right way.
Running away and burying your head in the sand is not an option. Instead, you need a clear plan and the ability to stick to it, even when the going gets tough.
To help you create this plan, here is a guide to moving house:
Use storage boxes
When moving from one property to another, the most strenuous task is how you will transport your furniture and other belongings. There are several options at your disposal.
On the one hand you could hire a van or truck and attempt to shift the load yourself. This is a tempting option for many – especially if you are young and you don’t have a family to worry about.
However, bear in mind that if you have existing commitments like a day job, finding time to shift all your possessions may be tricky. What’s more, even if you find a free weekend or two, lifting furniture is not for the faint hearted – particularly if you don’t have help.
This is why many people opt to have a removal company complete the job for them. This is another compelling option, because hiring a dedicated team lightens your workload and speeds the moving process up considerably.
The downside is the cost. Hiring a removal team doesn’t come cheap, and you may find it hard to justify the outlay (particularly when cheaper options are available).
Of course, this doesn’t even account for the fact that your new house may not yet be ready to dump your possessions into. In that case, you would have to find a safe and dry place to store the contents of your house for the interim.
This is where a firm like BoiseBox Storage can help.
With their watertight storage boxes, you can load up your furniture in your own time. Once the box is full, it will be lifted onto a truck and taken to your chosen destination. This provides you with the best of both worlds – enabling you to be hands on with your house move without having to be burdened by the transportation element.
Start prepping as soon as possible
House moves require a lot of administration, planning and old-fashioned heavy lifting to execute effectively.
Therefore, the longer you have to complete the move, the more time you can dedicate to selling old possessions, wrapping up your furniture carefully, organizing it properly and transporting it methodically (rather than at breakneck speed).
Although you might not have the luxury of planning far in advance (many house moves come about relatively suddenly), you need to make the most of whatever time you have available to you.
This may even mean starting to wrap lesser used possessions while the house deal is still going through. If the deal is almost certainly going to go through, then this will give you a great head start. If it falls through, at least you tried your hardest to be prepared.
Make a list of what you want to keep
Discarding items that mean a great deal to you is always heart-rending, but it is a necessary evil if you are going to fit your possessions in your new house.
If you are moving into a far larger house and you have the extra time to transport them, you may not have to get rid of too much, but regardless, you will need to decide what is staying and what is going.
There is no shortcutting this process. You will need to go through everything you have and make a note of whether you are keeping it or not.
The result is a far more streamlined moving process.
Break the process down into sections
As with any complicated and time-intensive task, moving house can be daunting if you view the project as one big job. This is the wrong way to approach a house move because hidden within this overarching project is several smaller jobs.
These include packing up your stuff, transporting it, liaising with the previous owner of your new house, and selling your unwanted possessions.
You will notice that each of these tasks is relatively easy to complete in and of itself. Once you place them into a coherent order, you can tick each off the list without feeling overwhelmed.