Need is the opportune word ” moving home”. It was too small, it was not close to any good schools, its garden was shrinking around my growing dog and the requested Christmas trampoline gift was on hold.
Once the need is accepted the search began. The long arduous search. You could have written a book on the search. Many people have. It’s a book that starts out with a twinkle in your eye and optimism in your heart. It ends up a horror story with family feuds and financial ruin. It’s a book that most people write in their lives and although most have a happy ending the toil and hardships along the way make people believe it was barely worth it. Let’s face facts. There is nothing pleasant about moving home. It is inconvenient and expensive. It is something that happens mainly out of necessity rather than adventure.
For the sake of this article, I’m not going to get into the details. Let us just say after 18 months, the family was still together, the trampoline takes up 80% of the back garden, the dog gets 3 walks a day to stretch and I had an offer accepted on a 3-bed semi.
I never even thought of the logistics of moving home. After the offer was accepted, we were given a move-in date of about 3 months. It was a new build and as normal things get delayed and problems arise. Friends warned us to treat the dates given as wishful thinking. In their experiences, the dates were never accurate and I should expect many pushbacks and many excuses. They were not wrong. How can Brexit cause delays for door hinges? Why was the Suez canal blockage responsible for my heating pump being four months late? Why do all builders shut down for August?
The dates got pushed back further as did my reluctance to leave my home which had a sale agreed with a nice newlywed couple. The knock-on effect merry-go-round had them overstay their rental agreement and no doubt delayed another couple their rental. After months of excuses all was done save the snag list. At this stage, we knew the date was imminent and we began to make moving plans.
One of my recently moved friends recommended vanquotes.ie as a good place to start preparations for the move. First port of call was their moving tips section. One of the recommended things to do pre-pack is the cull. The cull gives you an opportunity to start fresh in your new surroundings about home moving. You need to treat everything you own as a passenger you will pay a fare for, to bring to the new house. Do you really need that nest of tables in the shed that your granny owned? Is that 32-inch TV without remote and broken stand ever going to get used? How long is it since you wore that peach jacket with the shoulder pads aka Miami Vice? It’s a new house, a new beginning, do not take the old unused clutter into your new home. This is the chance to start fresh. Go through everything and make it into piles.
Make a charity pile. Stuff that is still good and would be wanted.
A crap pile, stuff that’s broken and outdated.
A bring pile. Things that you are happy to share your new home with.
When this cull is done you will have a good idea of the task involved in the move. The more you can give away or throw out the easier your move will be. I got rid of a full medium skip of smaller items and a van load of older furniture and weary mattresses. Vanquotes actually had a van for this as well. All were removed with permits and recycled.
This cull was therapeutic. It also gave me a good idea of the task ahead of home moving. I bought my boxes and started the pack. Another tip was not to overpack the boxes. They have to be liftable and light enough to avoid the bottom falling out when picked up. I also marked the boxes with a brief description of the contents. This means that if I’m looking for something in a hurry I have a better chance of finding it and will also allow the movers to know which room it’s going into at the drop-off end. I got my moves through vanquotes.ie. They were great and had 5-star reviews. The tips from the website had made their life easier.
They arrived and loaded in less than 2 hours. The new home was only 20 minutes away, so by lunchtime, I was in my new home with all my furniture and belongings in the correct rooms. They even reassembled the beds and put together the trampoline. It is crazy to think that almost 2 years from the time we made a decision to move we were now in our new surroundings. The dog barked his approval of the back garden as the movers pulled out. I hoped d never see them again but would recommend them to any future movers.
