5 Top Tips to Minimize the Stress of Unpacking When Moving House
Posted on 03/02/2016
Moving house is a stressful activity; more often than not, a situation arises where one poor member of the family is left to organise all of the moving arrangements, from packing and time management to unpacking! Luckily, there is a way to get the whole family involved in the unpacking process so that your move can flow in a more relaxed fashion, meaning that you can ease gently into your new home life.Add these tips to your moving checklist to ensure a smooth relocation:
1. Pack daily essentials into one box: Once you have arrived in your new home it will have been a long day, so the last thing you want to be doing is scrambling through boxes attempting to find a saucepan and wooden spoon. When packing up boxes in preparation for moving, it is useful to assign a box to act as your ‘daily essentials’ box. This box should be your ‘go-to’ of important items that you are likely to need very soon after you have moved house. Things like basic kitchen utensils, shower items, phone chargers, extension leads and toothbrushes belong in this box, alongside any other things that you have a daily need for.
2. Make sure your box labels are specific: It is all well and good to label a box with the room name on it, but listing the general contents of the box will mean that you can prioritise which boxes are more essential to open and which can be left a few days before being delved into. Removal companies will also be more aware of what they are transporting, making unloading a lot easier!
3. Assign different family members to different room locations: By communicating with the removal service, you can instruct the movers to place certain boxes in specific rooms (meaning that you don’t have to strain to move boxes around once the removal van has left!). This then means that you can allow family members to work in assigned rooms and unpacking will happen collectively. For example, the kids can unpack their belongings in their rooms (taking joy in deciding how everything is going to be placed and organised) whilst parents can focus on unpacking the more delicate and important items such as crockery and paperwork. This way, people are given their own space to unpack in, minimising overcrowding and confusion hence avoiding misplaced items and stress overload.
4. Don’t rush to assemble things: Often the assembly of bed frames is seen as essential on the first night– however, for the first evening after moving in, it is often a lot easier to forget about fiddly Alan keys and screws until the next full day. Hence, having mattresses and air beds within close reach will make your first night a lot more relaxed. Be sure to get a good night of rest as the process of unpacking is a long one!
5. Plan the arrangement of a room before diving straight in: Make sure that you have planned how the room will look before you begin unpacking. It is better to have an organised idea as to how you want the room to look than simply unpacking everything then not knowing where to put it all. This tip will really help you stay more organised. Work in steps; for example, plan to assemble a bookcase before unpacking boxes of books. This will also mean that you don’t have go to through the ordeal of moving furniture around piles of belongings, as you will have already planned its position in the room beforehand.
