My top tips when moving house.

They say one of the most stressful things in life is moving house. I can't say I agree with this but then I only moved in with my Boyfriend (now Husband) when I was 21 so packing up my bedroom wasn't exactly stressful! 

Moving from our flat to our first house a year later was a completely different story though. By then we had a living room, kitchen, dining room and bedroom to pack up, not to mention all of the things we had bought for the new house. 

The biggest stress though was by far our Cockateil. He was completely terrified, you could literally see his little heart hammering away in his chest bless him. 

Next time we move we will also have our cheeky Charlie Boy along for the ride.

Who could resist those eyes?

So with a few of my Friends moving house recently (one is due to move Christmas week!) I thought I would share my own tips and advice from when we moved and also some I have noted for any future moves.

If you have pets:

Please read these tips on moving house with your pets. If moving is so stressful for us Human, I can only begin to imagine how our little pets feel. It has simple yet helpful suggestions about how to make the journey as painless as possible and tips such as packing your pets bed and toys last so you can set them out as soon as you arrive.

Redirect your post to your new home:

Even though you think you have notified everyone of the change of address there will always be one company that haven't updated your details properly - for us it was our bank, we were locked out of our online banking for days because our address hadn't been updated properly in the branch. Had we had our mail forwarded we would have noticed correspondence still going to the old address and rectified the problem.

Buy a new bed frame: 

Odd you make think but after our wooden bed had been unscrewed and re-screwed at the new house it kept getting loose and never felt sturdy again. We ended up buying a cheap metal bed which lasted years and was passed on to Friends when we bought our new bedroom suite.

Most importantly:

Before you pack away all of your things, find out where the stopcock (to turn off the water) is. We never knew until the washer froze and flooded the kitchen, a lot of water damage could have been prevented if we knew where to turn the water off immediately!