Moving House Old Style

Winter_Phoenix

Ordinary plastic carrier bags from the supermarket are brilliant for transporting books. Put the books in, tie the bag handles together. This takes away the risk of a too-heavy-to-lift box, and you can see through the translucent plastic which books are in which bag.

For houseplants, make a tube of corrugated cardboard slightly taller than the plant and as wide as the pot. Lower the plant in, and tape the cardboard firmly to the pot. At your new home, cut off the cardboard with scissors to avoid damaging the plant when lifting it out.

Use cushions and towels as extra packing materials around fragile items inside big boxes.

Roll up rugs and carpets and tie them with string or similar so that they can be used to wedge furniture in the removal van.

If you are transporting anything of high value, such as an expensive laptop or antiques or jewellery, deliberately mis-label the box with some innocuous words like "kitchen stuff" or "children's toys" to make it of less interest to thieves.

rosie383

Brill tip about using clear plastic bags for books!
We had a bit of good news today. We had thought our buyers wanted to move in within the next couple of weeks and we have nowhere to move to yet. Found out it's going to be at least another 4-6 weeks which is fab news for us. Here's hoping we find our perfect house in the next few days.

Kittenkirst

Miolere- thank you so much for the recommendation on the vacuum packed bags from Amazon. Am sat here currently playing with them and amazed with the amount of clothes I am fitting in all of the bags! Really impressive stuff!!

bigdaftkid

I will be moving in a few weeks and will not be using removal firm to save money. I have a great deal on a self drive van but would welcome your tips on making the move easy without lots of costs. I have a friend bringing me boxes from her work so that's sorted. Any useful tips please?

zippychick

this thread will help ill merge this later once you have some more input

Zip

RAS

De-clutter; do not move stuff you do not want.

If you have a fridge and freezer, eat its contents up now.

Make sure that you keep the weight of the boxes manageable.

Have a drink and snack bag or box that goes in the cab of the vehicle not in the back.

maman

Label the boxes with what's inside them.


Be ruthless in your decluttering.


Start as soon as you can packing up the things you can manage without for the next few weeks.

SilverSaloon

if hiring a van, many companies offer to collect the van before they close the day before and return it at the end of the last day.

this allows you to start early on the day :money:

january_23

SilverSaloon wrote: »

if hiring a van, many companies offer to collect the van before they close the day before and return it at the end of the last day.

this allows you to start early on the day :money:

They already said they had a good deal but when we moved we hired the van on a Saturday afternoon and took it back Monday morning for opening (think it was 7/8am). As the place was shut on Sundays we were only charged for one days hire despite getting nearly two days worth.
Even shared the cost of the van with my parents as they needed to move a few things out of my grandmas place which they would do on the return trips. Now that was money saving.


We used bubble wrap my parents had saved. This is now again in storage. See if anyone has any as buying to keep your valuables safe can get expensive.


I agree with de-cluttering before you move. We had no choice but to do most of it after we moved and a good amount of stuff was chucked.
Agree with labelling. So much simpler than opening a box to find out where it should go. DVDs/Bluerays = living/tv room. Plates = kitchen.


I think the biggest one is having meals and snacks sorted for a few days (before move, during move and after move) so you don't get tempted to get takeaways or similar. It's too easy when moving to rely on convenience foods and takeaways if you don't organise food before.

PixieDust

Look in the fruit section of sipermarkets for bubble wrap and when you find some just ask a passing member of staff if you can take it, they're glad to get rid of it in my experience