Moving home – How to pack up a house yourself
Welcome back to our packing series blog takeover! With the best tips, tricks and advice for every move, our moving series is here to help you. Whether you’re moving down the road, across the country or to an entirely new country, we’re here to make the easiest move of your life. This time, we’re focussing on tips and tricks for the ultimate DIY packing.
1 – Start early
Don’t leave it to the last minute. In fact, you should start packing as soon as you have the moving transport booked. Give yourself plenty of time to get the packing materials you need, and to start packing your things room by room.
2 – One room at a time
Take it one room at a time, working from those you use the least to those you need right up until moving day. However even the most used rooms can be packed in advance, just leaving out the essentials.
When packing your kitchen make sure you start with freshly washed hands and have cleaned all the sides down. Use cloths and rubber bands to wrap up kitchen knives safely, and secure fragile items and glassware with bubble wrap and packing materials.
Bathrooms should be cleared of all non-essential items, leaving out just what you need in the run up to the move. You should also take the time to discard unused or out of date products or medication. Towels make great packing materials for other items in the home. And use up half empty cleaning bottles – don’t pack them. You don’t want leaks ruining other items.
3 – Declutter as you go
Nothing saves you time, stress and money like decluttering. In the months before, and as you pack room by room, be sure to discard unused or unwanted items. These can then be sold, gifted or donated. There’s no point packing, moving and unpacking something you don’t need or want in your new home.
4 – Label everything
Label, label, label. There’s no two ways about it – the more detail on your boxes, the easier unpacking and moving will be. We suggest labelling the room the items are going to/from as well as the kind of items inside. For example: ‘spare bedroom, bedding’ or ‘Kitchen, glasses’. These kinds of clear and descriptive labels will help you or your movers place them in the correct place on arrival and you’ll easily find what you need once there.
5 – Don’t overpack your boxes
We understand the instinct to try to cram in as much as possible to each moving box – it saves money on packing materials and space in the van. But do this and you run the risk of things breaking in transit, or the box breaking during the move. You could also end up with boxes too heavy to move. While it’s important to utilise all the space in a moving box, be mindful not to overpack or create very heavy boxes.
6 – Place heavy things at the bottom
This is a common sense one, but make sure that when you’re packing up a room you place the heaviest items at the bottom of your packing boxes. We also suggest labelling your boxes so that anything heavy or fragile is clearly marked.
7 – Make use of what you have
Don’t be tempted to ignore the items you have in place of using expensive packing materials. Things like old magazines and newspapers should be kept in the run up to the move and used as free packing material. Also, blankets and towels can make excellent packing materials, used to keep your things secure. Equally large baskets and hold-alls can be used to store and transport items instead of packing boxes.
8 – Have a moving day box
This is where you keep all your essentials, and where you’ll put all those ‘needed until the last-minute items’. It’s also a great place to keep your phone charger, purse and wallet, moving documents and other important items safe during the moving day process. We also advise popping in some snacks like biscuits or sandwiches and some water to keep you going between meals.
For all the help you need with your next move, get in touch with us today. Get a free, no obligation moving quote, or find out about our removal services. We make moving home easy for you.
