1. Really start packing on time. And ‘on time’ does not mean 4 days in advance (like we did). No, don’t underestimate how much stuff you can store in an apartment with storage. In the days before a move, you often have to arrange a lot more than just packing boxes (putting the finishing touches on the new house, selling stuff, taking apart cabinets, etc.). So don’t save that box-packing job until the last few days. Start on it on time. That way, it will remain a fun and manageable job. And a bonus tip: definitely don’t start on the storage the day before your move. That was definitely our biggest moving mistake 😉
  2. Please take 2 weeks (or more!) off for your move. If I could tell any aspiring mover one thing, it would be this. I was completely exhausted a few weeks after our move. I had given myself a grand total of 3 days off and was still answering work emails on our Big Moving Day. I felt like a zombie the first few weeks after the move and couldn’t really find my feet in a house full of boxes with handymen and painters walking around all the time. It wasn’t until weeks later that I started to get tired and realized that I had survived all those weeks on adrenaline. Looking back, I wonder why I thought “I can do this!”. I would definitely give myself 2-3 weeks off for such a big life milestone from now on. So if I could tell you one thing, it would be this:

Don’t think that moving is something you can just do on the side. Please give yourself a few weeks off, even if you really like your job. That will give you time to say goodbye to your previous home and to slowly find your way in the new house.

  1. Don’t save the garden for the very end. We had fully focused on all the rooms in the house. The garden would come at some point. And although I still fully understand that list of priorities, I was still annoyed that we only started doing something with the garden after half a year. Then the bulb-planting season was already over and it was suddenly outdoor weather while we didn’t have a garden set yet. In retrospect, I would have planted a few plants right after we moved, so that it would also look more cozy outside. Especially after a move, relaxing outside in the sun is very welcome. You can buy a garden set cheaply at Home Depot . Unsolicited tip from me: dare to choose color. We are very happy with our terracotta-colored set.
  2. Check in advance whether furniture will fit through the stairwell. Luckily, we had hired a couple of smart movers who quickly realized that some cabinets are much too big to maneuver through our tight stairwell. The movers eventually got the cabinet into the room through our first-floor window. But in retrospect, I would have measured things a bit better to save ourselves some last-minute stress.
  3. Have 2 big housewarmings instead of inviting everyone separately. After we moved, we both had a fairly empty battery, so we weren’t really looking forward to a huge housewarming. However, that did mean that we had at least 20 or even 25 people over for a housewarming. Super cozy and fun of course, but it also resulted in a lot of full weekends while we weren’t done with the work yet. In retrospect, I would have opted for those one or two housewarmings, so that we would have had more empty weekends.
  4. Make sure your pantry is ready before you move. When we moved, we only had a pantry. No shelves, no cupboard, no light, nothing. That turned out to be very inconvenient if you are moving all the stock from the old house. We still had a large part of the stock in boxes, so I could never find what I was looking for. So: a finished pantry is really nice if you move with a few boxes of products from the pantry. And if you don’t have that cupboard yet, think of a smarter box system than we did, so you don’t have to open 5 boxes every time to find the jars of pesto and packets of pasta 😉

By the way, there is one thing we did do well: moving with a cat. I had read many articles about how to do it best for your cat. And funny enough, our – normally not so adventurous – Pippa got used to the new house faster than we did. Madam immediately felt very happy with her bigger place, the piles of moving boxes (read: climbing course) and new lookout spots with a view of the birds. I already shared my tips for moving with a cat in an article.

  1. Don’t paint your hallway until after the move. No matter how neat a removal company is, moving is almost never without a hitch. There’s always a dent in a wall somewhere, a black smear on your freshly painted door frame or an ugly scratch in your new skirting board. I was always scared to death that the movers would break something, because we had just painted everything. Next time I would definitely not paint the hallway until after the move. Then it won’t matter as much if something gets accidentally hit.
  2. Say goodbye to your old home properly. I was quite surprised at how emotional it is to leave your own place behind. Our apartment was my first home I bought. My first step on my own. Many tears were shed before I closed the door behind me. Although I definitely took enough goodbye photos before we left the house, I would have liked to have taken more time for it in retrospect. We were in such a rush that I completely forgot that I was also closing a chapter. So an unsolicited tip from me: start packing boxes and all the arrangements in time, just so that you have time for this too.
  3. Make sure you have a good workspace in your new home. A home doesn’t have to be finished to be able to work there. But don’t forget to arrange a nice (temporary) workspace in any case. At the time, I worked on a pile of moving boxes with a shelf above it and a lot of moving junk around me. Because of that, I felt like I was in chaos all the time. In retrospect, I would have prioritized differently and made sure that our workspaces and bedroom were finished first. The living room can also be done later. As long as the rooms where you spend most of your time are finished. And yes, that is my workroom as a home worker 😉
  4. Drop more balls and cancel more often. When you are in the middle of a renovation and moving, your weekends are automatically packed. Every weekend we drove back and forth to the new house to do odd jobs, paint and carpentry. Only your social agenda and the holidays continue as normal. At the time, I absolutely did not want to cancel anything and also wanted to participate happily in terms of work and social life. Quite crazy, I think now. I managed it all just fine. But you can make it so much easier for yourself by not expecting yourself to attend every family birthday or to always be able to plan things at short notice. I think everyone around you will understand that perfectly well.
  5. Check your bed for risk of collapse. No joke: we fell through our bed the first night after the move. The movers accidentally didn’t install the bed leg in the middle properly, which meant that after a gruelling day in the evening, we fell down 20 centimetres, mattress and all, before our “Sleep tight!” greeting. Now we must be one of the few people that this happens to. But still: I would never sleep on a freshly assembled bed again without checking that one middle leg 😉
  6. Let go of the idea that your house has to be presentable right away. I had in mind that our house would be as good as finished after 1 month. Little did I know that some furniture has a very long delivery time, that our wardrobe doors would not be in stock and that you also have to find time to put that furniture together. Our house was definitely not finished after 3 months. Sometimes I was ashamed of that, for example when we had friends over after only 3 weeks and we didn’t even have a dining table yet. Now I think: “Who cares?”. Everyone understands that your house doesn’t look fantastically decorated after one week. It can still be an unfinished mess for a while. Just show your house as it is and don’t feel obliged to dust the house three times before every house tour.
  7. Also keep doing things that have nothing to do with moving. I am quite a pusher when it comes to moving: I want to finish everything as quickly as possible and I work really hard for that. But as I have discovered after 2 moves, it is also very important to plan a day out during a moving period, to go to the hairdresser once, to go to the beautician, to treat yourself to a massage… Just as a break from work often helps you to be able to continue with energy afterwards, this certainly also applies to moving and renovation breaks.

But hey, fortunately moving is not on the agenda for the next few decades. And fortunately everything turned out fine. You see: all big steps in life involve trial and error, but you always become wiser from them.

What is your most important moving lesson that you would share with others?