Holy smokes can you believe we moved out of our little London flat in March? It feels like it was yesterday that we were packing up and moving the final essentials into our friend Jamie’s van and driving away from our Kensington home. Mind you, the rain was pouring pretty steadily that afternoon – which made the whole moving process that much more fun.
Ugh.
And then we lived in between homes for a little while because we were you know, waiting for our mortgage and the flat’s subject to contract business to finalise.
Originally, we hadn’t planned on finding a home to buy until around this time of the year, late August/early September. So we had already planned on being in the states for a couple of weeks over the summer. We knew we weren’t going to have any rent commitments and thought it would be the perfect time to spend time with family in the states.
While we were waiting we signed the paperwork before our trip back to the states and left it for our solicitor to organise the rest of the details.
I won’t claim to have all the secrets to a successful move. I really don’t. I think each time is hard. And sometimes it’s good to have little reminders to prepare yourself for it.
Here are my 9 tips on surviving moving into a new place:
Make sure all your stuff is going to fit
Somehow, we still managed to royally eff this one up. Geniuses that Joe and I are, we came round the flat before we moved to measure up and make sure our furniture would fit – and also that we could buy things that would fit too.
I still managed to completely mess this one. I ordered a daybed from IKEA for our guest room, only to realize very quickly that if assembled, it would mean our closet doors and windows in the room would never be able to open. Twenty minutes into the setup, we abandoned that disaster of a and I called IKEA to organize someone to pick it all back up.
We ended up ordering a slightly more expensive but way easier to assemble bed from made.com. Pick your home battles wisely.
Clean it, clean it, clean it
This might sound silly, but I’d recommend getting your new pad professionally cleaned. Ours was littered with spiderwebs and I don’t think the carpets had been hovered in MONTHS. Pretty unpleasant right? Right. Before we came back from the states (we owned it at this point), we organized cleaners to come in and do the heavy work. We still don’t even have our own hoover (three weeks in and counting) but I don’t even want to think about the work that would have gone into making our space “move-in ready” on our own.
Take a moment
We landed back from our trip stateside back to London’s Heathrow airport at 10am… and were moving into our new flat by 3pm later that day.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend moving while you’re running on literally zero sleep. It makes you cranky and you 100% aren’t processing the gravity of the exciting change in your life. When you step into your new place for the first time (as an owner or new renter) it’s a big move! Enjoy it. Smile. Take in your new surroundings without having serious jet lag. Basically the same advice people give to you for your wedding day. Enjoy it!
Make a budget… and then recognize that you’re not going to stick to it
We made a spreadsheet. We made a budget. And then you know what? You realise that there are 100 extra things that you don’t plan for. The door handle is going to break off locking you into the living room. The boiler is 100% going to play up in the first week. And you don’t have enough furniture to fill the place.
When you anticipate that it’s going to happen, it can make it feel slightly less overwhelming. And this way you can try to cushion your budget to accommodate it. Or have a seriously great interest free credit card to at least help soften to blow.
Buy a plant
Having some greenery in your space really does make a big difference in how you feel about the space. I made sure that in our first week we bought a mix of large and small plants to scatter throughout the flat. I’m actually planning to talk more about it in an upcoming blog post.
Get pizza on your first night in
It’s a no brainer. You’re not going to want to learn how to figure out how to use any of your new appliances. Just order a pizza, pop open a bottle of bubbles to celebrate and sit yourselves down on the floor. Enjoy the moment.
Accept that your first food shop is going to feel outrageously expensive
Unless you have been stockpiling food at your old place before you move… most of us have to replenish absolutely every last little thing. That means, spices, bags of rice, pasta, cans of everything, bottles of wine, etc, etc. All the things you were so used to having in your old cupboard now becomes something you need to fill in your new cupboard.
It’s not cheap doing the stockpile shop. But once you’ve done that shop, your weekly shop will feel a helluva lot smaller – and more affordable.
Remember that it’s YOUR new space
Just like with any big life changing steps, there’s going to be some unsolicited advice. Some of it’s great (like this article, obv) but some of it’s not necessarily things you want to hear. Why would you put that there? What do you think about this? You need x, y or z. Remember that at the end of the day, it’s your space that you’re living in. So make sure you make it what you want.
Know that you can’t do it all at once
This is a tough one. It’s incredibly hard not to jump into everything all at once. But I mean it when I say… don’t rush things. Some pieces are going to take a little while to come together. We’ve decided that for 2018, our focus is furniture and filling our space. Next year? Ripping up our guest bathroom. Some things can wait – and good things usually do take time!
But most off all my favourite ~fun~ tip for surviving moving is… be excited! Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by the process. This is a super fun time in your life – enjoy it!
Kelly xoxo