when do you start packing ?

mumofthetwins

Like i said in my other threads we accepted an offer on wednesday :j
The buyers have a cash FTB buying thiers and that sale is proceeding nicely (EA told me). We are moving back into a home we currently rent and we are living with family untill it is renovated - so we can move ASAP

We live in a big 5 bed house and like i said on the other thread all our lofts and cuboards are full :eek:
As we need to put alot of our things into storage we are planning on car booting alot, so i was wondering at what point do you normally start sorting out and packing up ?
We both work and night times/saturdays would be the best time to sort and we could car boot on a sunday.

Im the kind of person who packs for thier holidays a month beforehand, as i always tell hubbie " i like to be prepared"

Lisa

AMO

You've got a lot to pack, so pack a lot of stuff you don't use a bit at a time. Given that you've already accepted an offer, you need to definately get started given the volume you have.

You need to get quotes from removal firms (make sure they are bar registered - google it) once you know the party that is buying your house has applied for their mortgage and is scheduling in any mortgage valuations. Then they are unlikely to back out. Once they've signed with their solicitors, definately they haven't got any reason to back out.

It's good to get moving quotes early as it can take a couple of weeks for the quotes to come through. Try to move on Mon-Wed. Thursday (pre-packing) and Friday are busy as hell for removal firms and also if things go wrong from a banking side on the Friday, they are not open on Saturday. Also make sure you get up early on the day to reserve the space for the removal van outside your house/

To reduce stress, consider paying for them to pack.

It costs for an average 3 bed not going very far:
1) £300 for a one man band you might know down the road (not bar registered - risky unless you know him well).
2) £500 for a bar registered firm.
3) 2) + £120 for them to pack breakables.
4) 2) + £200 for them to pack everything.
More if you have furniture that needs to be unassembled.

But for the sake of a couple of hundred quid, to hand everything to them other than what you want to pack yourself makes the move less stressful.

Of course, your quotes are going to be higher.

phoebe1989seb

I definitely agree that with a large house full of *stuff* you need to start packing early and be very well organised. We have experience of a few of these 'larger' moves - from a 4 bed to a 6 (via my parents' and with everything going into storage), from the 6 bed to a 5 bed and most recently from the 5 bed to another 5 bed

We have always preferred to pack ourselves, but that's down to personal opinion, but with a huuuuge amount of furniture and other things it has been like planning a military operation, so it's best to have a stategy! Get organised with boxes, bubble-wrap, tissue, tape and tape-gun early on and ensure you mark the boxes with their contents/room they will eventually end up in. I only recently discovered that the best way to pack plates is on their sides and in our last move (done ourselves) we managed to incur no breakages at all

Clearing out anything you won't need in your new home is a very good idea - ebay/carboots are obviously good for this, although I hate parting with anything as I always wonder if it might be useful one day, lol!

Regarding costings, it's definitely worth getting several quotes from reputable removals firms (if you are not planning on doing it yourselves) as these can vary a lot. Our last two moves involved journeys of 150 and 200 miles so not the average local move, but to give an idea quotes varied between £2500 and £4000.......like I said we have a lot of stuff

mumofthetwins

We were ment to be going away at the weekend but i think we might just stay at home and make a start on the packing/sorting.
Can anyone reccomend any packing tools / boxes and were to get them from ?
Lisa

AMO

We go down to supermarkets and corner shops and ask for boxes. Get the good sized boxes - most of them will have been flatpacked ready for recycling but you can put them back together with brown tape.

Also, ask at work and friends to see if they can get any through their work places.

There are boxes on the internet, but it can get expensive - starts at about £50 for 35 assorted boxes.

Also enquire with the moving company - they will supply some boxes especially the ones for holding clothes (they'll lend these to you) as these are very expensive to buy.

Racky_Roo

Pop into local gift shops and ask if they have any bubble wrap. I own my own shops and we hoard bubble wrap for Christmas. I currently have a basement full. When I moved house last year, I took loads home, then when i'd unwrapped it all in my new house, took it all back to the shop again. I've often given or loaned bubble wrap to customers for just this purpose.

Fruit and veg shops always have banana boxes - great for packing as they aren't too big. I also borrowed the plastic boxes friends used for kids toys etc as they had lids and then gave them back asap.

Finally, I went to the £1 shops and bought under bed storage bags and used them for blankets, cushions etc

menollyke

We started things just after the offer was accepted, we moved everything in my inlaws garage for the time being and planned on breaking the chain to move in their. I sorted out the loft first, freecycled things I did not need, sold things that were worth it and moved other stuff. After that I started boxing up the dvd's, books and other stuff. Eventually after exchange we started to actually move. We only had three days between exchange and completion, so was very happy to have done most things beforehand.

Angelicdevil

ASAP!

Something I didn't do and it ended up being even more of a nightmare then it should have been!

Left everything till the week before thinking I had plenty of time, huge mistake!

Horace

I started packing as soon as I handed my notice in to my landlord last week. It scares me the amount of stuff that I have but I have already taken several loads to the charity shop, binned a load of stuff and still have stuff to sort out.

At least I have some large plastic crates that have been filled for a while now so things are not too bad.

cattie

I'm pleased to see that someone has asked this question as it's something I've been pondering since getting the all clear from my buyer regarding her survey a few days ago.

I know my buyer will want to come back and do some measuring up and her working commitments don't give her a lot of free time other than Sundays and she wants to come on a day when her daughter is down from uni, so that's likely to be next weekend.

Anyway, I was just a bit worried about having boxes hanging around the place too early. I don't have a garage and the downstairs of my house isn't as spacious as the upstairs. So, perhaps once she has been next weekend, I'll make a start. I've got a fair bit of stuff I want to try to Ebay.

Unfortunately the way my cottage style house is built it means anything I store in the dining room, which would be the most convenient place for me, then needs to be carried through the kitchen into the living room then into the very small hall and out of the front door. Only once the front door is open, it blocks access to the dining room door.

It's going to make life more difficult for the removal men only having access this way. And I did wonder if they would consider taking off the front door, which would make accessing the dining room a bit of a doddle. Perhaps when I phone to ask them to come and give me a quote I will query this with them.

mumofthetwins

Thanks for the replies.
I started on the first loft eve saturday afternoon, and i managed to sort a few clothes, bags and shoes which were in there and did a car boot this morning :T
I am now £203 richer and have cleared a small part of the loft eve:j.
I am going to continue with it on a night after work and hopefully carboot on Thursday and Sunday again.
Its amazing what you can clearout at a carboot and the way i see it is the items were sitting in the loft and i would have given them away, but now im halfway towards my solicitor costs .
Ive got 2 more loft eves (both twice the size of the first) and a full 9 meter loft across the back of the house to get through before i even start on the rooms :eek:.
Lisa