It’s been a long, but exciting weekend. All of our belongings are now at our new house. Our beds are set up, the kitchen is mostly unpacked, and we’re settling in quite nicely.
There’s still a lot of work to be done on our house. We have two bathrooms, and both are half-working. Fortunately what one lacks, the other makes up for, so between the two, we have a fully functioning bathroom.
The floors are not completely in. All of our closets are floorless (well, we do have sub-floor), and the bathrooms still have the old nasty floors. Some of our windows need fixing. The glass is OK, but some windows won’t open. And our laundry room is a disaster. But it’s home, and it feels good.
Sam has been enjoying riding his bike on the road in front of the house, something he couldn’t do before, because there was so much traffic. Liz has been taking full advantage of her new bedroom on the other side of the house. And I have been enjoying the fact that she can play her music semi-loudly, and I can’t hear it from my room. :)
We still have quite a bit of unpacking to do, but most of the boxes are stashed in the spare bedroom, so they’re not cluttering up the house too much.
While I’m busy unpacking some more today, I thought I’d leave you with some tips for unpacking, in case you are moving soon.
- Set up the beds first. You’ll need a place to sleep, and when you are ready to collapse from the exhaustion of the move, you’ll be glad you won’t have to set the beds up.
- Unpack the kitchen and bathrooms next. You’ll feel better if you can eat and clean up in an organized area.
- Then do the kids’ rooms. The kids will be so excited about their new rooms, you won’t see them again for a few hours. :)
- Unpack the master bedroom. It’s important to be able to find your clothes before work on Monday morning.
- Finally, set up the rest of the house.
That’s what worked for us. We’re on the last step, and I’m going to take my time with it.
Do you have any moving and unpacking tips? Please share!
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
i agree with the “bed first” tip. a friend told me that when we moved 7 years ago and it was great to have a fully made bed to fall into that night.
also, plan out dinner well ahead of time. either bring something you’ve already made or get a pizza — just decide ahead of time so everyone isn’t cranky and freaking out because they are starving at the end of the day.
and congrats on the big move!
Congratulations, and welcome home! I hope your home is as blessed as ours is. We labeled our boxes so that we knew which boxes went in which rooms, then the movers could place them in the appropriate rooms for unpacking. We brought food that was easy and quick to prepare and put it into the refrigerator (which was already on) for our first meal here. I agree, beds and kitchen and bathroom are essential to do first of all. I packed a “must have” box: it had soap, toilet tissue, towels, washcloths, a few plates, cups, silverware, etc. so that all of the really essential things were together for easy access. It took us several weeks to really get established, but it was so much easier to take our time with all but the basic essentials.
Once you’ve gotten the basics set up, I would say put some pictures up on the walls–I find (and I’m on my fifth apartment in 9 years) that it makes the new house feel like home much faster.
Congratulations on your new home! How exciting!
My advice is to set a time and focus on unpacking. Then move on to something else when the timer goes off. Keeps you from getting burnt out.
It actually helped us to settle in better when we moved, and I felt link things were under control!
Always have a staging area for the extra unpacked boxes – either a garage, a corner of the living room, or a spare room (since you are that lucky!)
Then don’t look at the whole pile at once – just plant to do one or two boxes a day, or 2 boxes a week… while you might get more done, knowing that you have a plan for the rest of them will allow you to breathe easier. There’s a lot of shoe-horning into a new space, and sometimes you need to figure out the where-can-that-go problem before you can unpack it…saves doing it twice – which is to be avoided at all costs :)
CONGRATS on your OWN HOME!!! HOORRAAAYYY!!!!
Hang in there with the bathrooms – it’ll all work out. I had to live for about 7 months with the only running water in the house being the bathroom sink, toilet, shower, and washmachine…ie, NO kitchen :) The worst was that for 2 months I had a bucket under the bathroom sink that had to be emptied after every use into the toilet. But as it was only me, I could deal with it as I was soooo happy to be in my house! TODAY I am awaiting the inspector for my FINAL inspection on the house!!! Last week, the electric didn’t pass, so that got fixed, and I am hoping for my final FINAL inspection today and certificate of occupancy! It’s been a long 3 years :) But TOTALLY worth it!
Typo – should be PLAN to unpack… I’ve got new edible landscaping to plant today, so Planting was on my mind! Aronia berries and Serviceberries for a hedge.
Congrats on getting moved in to your new home! Best of luck with it!
I just recently moved into a new apartment (not quite as much work as a new house, yet still a chore unto itself). I agree with getting the bed up first.
Another tip isn’t unpacking but packing. If you do it in an organized manner it makes unpacking SO much easier. I made the mistake of just throwing everything into various boxes. When I needed something, I couldn’t find it when I unpacked. It made everything so much more difficult. Great Post!
Congrats on getting moved in! It’s so much work. My packing tip would be to have a “Last Out/First In” box. Put in the things that you’ll really need the first day of unpacking, like a tool kit, coffee maker, radio, whatever you know you’ll want right away. That way, you’re not rooting through lots of boxes to find things that first day.
Lots of great moving tips. I’m also getting ready to move soon. I also would comment on the packing side … have meals planned and easy to make. It’s a lot easier to deal with the stress when in the midst of packing, cleaning, and even painting type stuff when you have a regular eating schedule.
When you are looking at moving in, if possible, try to paint before you move in. The same goes for any carpet cleaning, bombing for bugs if it sat empty for a while, and cleaning that needs to take place for general purposes. It saves having to move a lot of stuff around for access to where you want to work AND you don’t have the other distractions to pull you away from your work! Depending on your move, however, it’s not always possible.
If I ever build/remodel a house again, I would say to build the garage first so you have a place to unload everything and leave it there until you need it.
I must have moved everybox in my house 10 times already, or so it seems, and it would have been much easier with everything in a garage until the construction/remodel of each room was done!
Live and learn!
Depending on the age of the kids, I’d almost say do their rooms first (after the beds and at least one bathroom). We moved when our son was 2, and by having his room “done” (read: toys unboxed, but not organized) first, he would play quite happily in there for big chunks of time, allowing me to do other things.
Another thing I did before that move was to pack up about 1/2 of his toys a good month or so before the move… partly because it was an easy place to start with the packing, and partly because it made everything “new” again when we moved in!
Glad you are finally in your OWN PLACE!!! I can imagine your relief. It is so great to have a house that you own (no matter how many maintenance issues it has!) :-)
All of your tips are mine. I just wanted to add that I labeled every box with a colored tag–a different color for each room of the house. I kept a notebook in which I entered most of the contents of each box, along with the number that coincided with the tag on the box. I also put a star on the tags of the boxes that did not need to be unpacked right away.
It saved so much time and stress when we moved in!
Congrats on a successful move! Hope it continues to go well for you and your family
Congratulations on the move! I agree that tweens/teens need to have a bedroom apart from others to help with the music issue! If I have to listen to Hannah Montana one more time while I’m making breakfast… lol
Homemaker Barbi (Danelle Ice)