Tips for moving house ourselves please!

youth_leader

I must recommend wearing proper shoes when doing it yourself, and have a first aid kit in your essential moving kit. Someone lent me a small, very heavy, homemade wooden stool - smaller stool fitted inside it - as I said my dog would miss his 'window' shelf here.  First night I moved into this rental on my own, in driving snow, I picked up the stool and the smaller one fell out onto my big toe and crushed it.  Had to limp back to my house in agony with one foot booted and one flip flopped as I hadn't any first aid kit here.  I did feel extremely sorry for myself that night, took six weeks before I could walk normally.

in_my_wellies

I hired a Luton van to move my mother from her 2 bed flat when she came to live with me. 45 mile journey. Sold and gave to charity as much as possible before the day. My daughter helped

Boxed everything but bagged some things like pillows and duvets to use them for packing. 

The flat looked empty but even so it was a squeeze and a half getting it all in the van. 

We were so tired and in a hurry to get the van back by the deadline we started to drive home and realised we'd forgotten mother, had to go back and collect her from her neighbour. 

youth_leader

That's made my night in_my_ wellies, nearly as bad as me leaving my son outside a shop once!

oniongirl

45 boxes doesn't seem very many. We are 2.5 rooms in to our pack and somehow have already used about 70. We did start with the rooms with the most stuff though. But we haven't started the kitchen... 

AdrianC

oniongirl said:

45 boxes doesn't seem very many. We are 2.5 rooms in to our pack and somehow have already used about 70. We did start with the rooms with the most stuff though. But we haven't started the kitchen... 

I think we had 45 boxes of books. Post-declutter... (And I still get grief over the 30-odd boxes of books that went to the Oxfam bookshop, a decade on)

daivid

Think carefully about you heaviest/ most awkward items to move. I moved myself and would have happily have moved 2x (or 10x) as much 'stuff' without the large mirror fronted wardrobe doors as 1x with. If you have awkward items how will you get them through doors, round corners, up stairs... As our stairs have a switch back and low ceiling I had to lift the wardrobe doors straight up the gap in the middle, without a supply of burly removal people this took a bit of working out. If I moved again I would pay professionals or 'accidentally' break the wardrobe doors before starting the move.

madurdar

When we moved, we didn't think to do as you advised. We called a truck but did not hire professional movers. We moved all the boxes with things and all the furniture to the car together with my brother. Then we drove in our pickup truck in front of the truck, showed the way to the carrier. We did not think about putting on old shoes, so as not to dirty our new ones. I carried bags and boxes in my boots. It was very stupid of me.

arrows123

swingaloo2 said:

We did it ourselves just 2 months ago. We only moved about a mile. Like you we had a few days with both properties so no 'one day' rush.
How we did it- On the day we got the keys I went in and cleaned all the kitchen cupboards so they were just ready for our stuff.  I then decided what was going in each cupboard before it was taken to the new house. I didnt pack boxes, I used some of those big blue bags you get from Ikea so you can see whats in there, no need for labels and as long as you are careful no damages either.  I spent nothing at all on boxes or packaging. I di use some newspaper for my glass ornaments. Every time I went from one house to the other I took stuff that was going to be put away in the cupboards first, pots, pans, cutlery etc and so the kitchen was sorted  easily.  It meant we could make a drink or sandwich easily during the 'big stuff/final' day.
 I cleaned all the windowsills so I could transfer ornaments straight out of the bags.
Then I went round working out what item of furniture was going where so I knew exactly what to put in each room. I took my curtains down and transferred them to the new house, the same with any light shades.  Any pictures off walls were put in the car and hung straight up in the new place.  I took all the drawers out of the bedroom furniture and put them into the car without emptying them so when the carcasses came they were just slid back in.  I borrowed 2 hanging rails to use till the wardrobes were re-built and took all the clothes round still on hangers.
We had a 3 bed semi and apart from the very large  stuff, sofa, dresser, table,  2 double beds, 2 wardrobes, fridge and freezer everything fitted in the car and was taken on the 2nd day. I planned on hiring a van for the day for the big stuff but I went on a local neighbourhood site and put out a request for a man and van.  I put a list of what needed moving and how far it was. Was really lucky in that a man replied straight away and although he was not a removal man he had a big van that he used for his job (gardener) and he offered to move it for £30. I told him I would give him £50 but it took 2 trips and a bit longer than I think he had estimated and he was really good so I gave him £100. He was over the moon and so was I. 
The worst thing ws rebuilding the wardrobes but just transferring things from one kitchen cupboard to a new one was easy. 
I wouldnt hesitate to do it again, just needs forward planning but if you dont have to do a 'one day' move it's achievable.

This is pretty much my exact plan! All my friends and family think I’m mad, I don’t think I have much stuff, and haven’t boxed much up, hopefully moving in the next 7-10 days but got until 18th October to leave my rental. 

kungfu_navs

Get furniture moving gloves, less than £3. Makes moving furniture up and down stairs much easier. 

Owleyes00

We just did a self-move last weekend albeit from a one bed flat so we didn’t have that much stuff.

We did it over 4 days and the first two I just went to the house and unpacked all the kitchen stuff and our wardrobe. 

Saturday was the big day and we hired a van and did it in two loads. It went really smoothly but we had my parents, my partner’s parents, his brother and two friends helping and it got done really quickly so my biggest tip is get lots of people to help!