Making a house a home – moving in

August 16th, 2012 Home

The first stage in turning a property into your ideal home is clearly to move in; it’s the most important step in finding out how you will fit into and use your new living space.

Although viewings of a property will give you a good idea about how you will likely use the rooms and spaces therein, it’s not until you actually move in your ‘stuff’ that you really get a feel for the usable space and how you might organise your belongings to make the most of the floor plan.

My partner and I have been through three removals in Edinburgh, and the move days have generally been very similar; packing boxes and bits of furniture strewn across the floor with no real idea of where to put anything. However there is a better way:

Placement is everything

The secret to a good move, and thus a smooth transition into a usable living area, is always to plan ahead. In this case it’s thinking about where you are likely to put each bit of significant furniture, or where the contents of boxes are likely to need to be unpacked.

Efficiency is important, both for saving time and money in the removals process, so you don’t want to move your items any more than necessary. Place heavy boxes and furniture where they’re likely to stay, at least in the near future, and your home will already begin to take shape. You can even draw a plan of where your items will go, and label boxes accordingly for the removals help.

You can use areas like garages to store less vital boxes or items until a later date – your focus should be on making a home as soon as possible.

St-st-st-stages

If your belongings are well positioned, the unpacking can take place in stages. Although it’s difficult to prioritise, clearly ‘auxiliary’ rooms like studies or spare rooms can wait until last. First concentrate on creating an area in which you can sleep, so get your bed set up as a minimum even if the bedroom is still messy. Next you’ll need somewhere to relax, so focus on tidying the living room so you have a sanctum from the removals madness. Then you’ll have somewhere to unwind and, in true British fashion, enjoy a cup of tea.

When unpacking, again try to be efficient. Put things in their final place immediately, and if you’re not sure where something will go then keep it boxed up and neat. You can even condense your ‘unsure placement’ items into just a few boxes so they take up as little space as possible.

At the end of the day, moving house is designed to improve your quality of home life, so make sure you don’t wallow in packing hell!