Apartment living has many pros and cons, but mostly this tightly-knit space doesn’t enable you to roam around as freely as you could if you were to live in a house. If you have set your mind to move to a house, you are in for a real treat. Besides having to adapt to a whole new living perspective, starting from having an outdoor sitting area, spacious rooms, and above all, your privacy, moving from an apartment can still represent a daunting experience. It’s just like stepping out of your comfort zone where you need to overcome certain obstacles and practical issues to make everything run smoothly. Luckily, the following checklist will ensure your apartment to house move passes perfectly.
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Start with essential paperwork
Before you head out moving things out of the apartment, make sure that you handle all the basic paperwork and documents. It would e advisable to change your address at least two weeks before your move. Also, ensure that you don’t have unpaid utility bills for the apartment, and even schedule your disconnect and connect electricity and gas dates. Cancel your old Internet and telephone provider, and call a new one to set up a date for making a new contract.
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Set a clear budget
No matter if you have bought an utterly new, ready-to-move in house, you a fixer-upper, you still need to sort out your finances for the entire movie. Moving from an apartment to a house represents a vast project, and even simple projects like refurbishing the floors or paintwork can cost you a fortune unless you plan everything diligently in advance. Set a clear budget for all the refurbishments, moving costs, rents, and other basic things and avoid getting stressed on your first day.
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Hire a professional moving company
First, try to make an inventory of your valuable possessions and household items before calling a moving company. Get some boxes where you would store some petite possessions and make sure that you label everything. Once you have packed and stored valuable items and wrapped furniture, find a mover that is both licensed and professional. If you desire your apartment to house transition to pass without any stress, the experienced team at S&P Network’s Marathon Moving Solutions will make it stress-free. Not only will you have all your bulky and precious furniture moved safely, but you won’t have to worry about any of the processes along the way.
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Organize a thorough inspection
Once you have found a good moving company, try to get a detailed inspection of your new house before placing the furniture in. Measure the width and length of some room to ensure that all of your belongings could fit and to better direct the movers where to place your items. Check whether there is a need for some major work. Inspect the plumbing and installation system. Consequently, if anything demands alteration, ask the seller or the landlord to take care of the costs or make some mutual agreement.
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Get prepared for doing chores
When moving to a house you must get ready to get your hands dirty. Besides doing the obligatory paintwork and cleaning before entering into your new premises, you might also do some other vital chores. As you would have the house empty, place only the carpet and have them steamed and thoroughly cleaned, paint the walls, refurbish or restore woodwork, wipe out the cabinets, spray for pests, etc. Don’t forget about outdoor redecoration. Hire a gardener or get spades, movers or trimmers, and the gardening yourself.
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Designate a “first-day-aid” kit
For the apartment-to-house transition to run smoothly, you should organize certain handy amenities for your first day or first-week stay. Even if the moving company get everything delivered and placed in time, you still will have an abundance of work to do with cleaning and sorting out the boxes. For that reason, designate a special first-day kit where you would place all the crucial items needed to survive the first days or week. Put paper plates, dinnerware, toilet papers, bathroom amenities, basic clothes, etc.
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Change the locks
One of the most important precautions measurement when moving to a house is to change the longs and even make spare keys. You can never be sure if the previous owner had shared his spared keys with neighbors, so better be safe than sorry. Change the locks, and give your new spare keys only to people you are close with.
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Meet & Greet
In the end, once you have settled and feel ready, it’s time to meet the neighbors. You can organize a welcoming garden party and send invites, or simply go around the neighborhood and hand out cookies and make a formal introduction. Knowing the person next door is helpful in many ways, from prevention against burglary and for other safety reasons.
Every change in life represents a real challenge, but with this helpful checklist you won’t suffer any inconveniences nor will the move be a burden.
Photo by Outsite Co on Unsplash
