Moving Day and Hiring Help (Buying my First Home)

It's been almost a month since I shared a true buying a house help post. With the busyness of moving and craziness of packing and unpacking, I'm finally getting around to sharing the last part of moving. Most things that come with moving house and buying a property, a lot of it is ultimately out of your hands and replies on waiting for other people to do their jobs, which can be hard. Packing is the one part that was on me! 

If you've watched the vlogs, you'll have seen how busy I was in the 2 weeks around my house move. I had a 4 day wedding celebration, another wedding and graduation! I'm also not someone who can live in chaos for long. I am admittedly slightly OCD and so any sort of disorganisation, I find really stressful and my anxiety kicks in. Whether right or wrong, I decided to leave packing up my house until the Wednesday before the move, leaving just 3 days to pack up the entire house. Realistically, it was 2 and a half in the end!

My rental wasn't the largest property, as a small 2 bedroom terrace house, but I accumulated enough and luckily I did have help. I ended up packing up the lounge, whilst my mum did the kitchen. Then I did the bathroom and study, whilst my mum did the wardrobe. It went fairly quickly, the longest part was loading everything into the car. I arranged items in room order which I thought was really helpful, especially when it came to unpacking. Also, I made it a priority to ensure boxes, bags and suitcases were mainly able to be carried by a single person. My mum was the only person with me and she had injured herself, so it was mainly on me to carry everything. 

We did 3 car loads on Wednesday, then a further 4 on Thursday (although not full). My house was a building site at the time so everything was put in the lounge. I initially placed everything in a big pile, but before leaving on Thursday, I split everything into piles my room and left space for where the lounge furniture was going to be placed. 

I then hired Any Van to help move the big furniture. The company provides instant quotes on your choice of any date, and moving includes the van, 2 men and basic compensation cover. I thought it couldn't have been easier and had a great booking process. I even had a customer service representative call to discuss the move in more detail, which as the time I felt was really helpful. 

You have to put each item in separately and make sure it's correct. My list was relatively short including: washing machine, 3 seater sofa, 2 seater sofa, tv stand, nest of tables, side board, double bed, double bed mattress, chest of drawers, wardrobe, side tables and desk. Everything else, we'd taken in the cars. You can adjust the list at any point until 48 hours before, as well as change the date and time as well. 

When the day came, two men came and were almost 2 hours late. They were nice enough, however one didn't speak any English and the other struggled which wasn't super helpful. The time is self-selected and you choose a 3 hour time slot. I thought this meant you had the service during this period, however they have multiple people booked for this time slot and they had 2 deliveries prior to mine. You also get an email the day before saying that delivery of items, may be within the two hours following that time slot, so it's only collection in the time slot. Mine were delivered straight afterwards, however they had items in the van from another person's house, which wasn't great as unfortunately, the van (which was already small), came half full. Ultimately, this meant I had to take my double bed apart which wasn't apart of the plan and was very frustrating, adding an extra unnecessary stress. 

One of the questions I'd asked customer service on the phone was what to put down for one of the questions of the booking form, as my items were split over both the first and ground floor. She said to put where the access to the property was, so of course I put the ground floor and then got charged over £33 on the day. Any changes made can be done on the day, but require approval of payment prior to them continuing. Likewise, at the new property they did the same thing and charged another £33, but there wasn't even an option on the form to put floor on the delivery address, which I found very frustrating. Of course, I didn't really have a choice because I needed to be out of my rental by 2pm, so the furniture needed to be moved! 

I felt the move was really rushed as the men were running up and down, in and out of the house. They were pretty careful at the rental, but in my new house, they banged my wardrobe about anything and everything. They've broken one of the slats and even dented my wall. They've scratched paint off of some of the furniture and lost a knob from one of the cabinets. Luckily, for the latter I did magically have a spare! It wasn't the best experience on the day, but I think that was because I had been informed incorrectly in advance and it was the best option I had a little last minute. 

In the end, the move went relatively successful and I had completely been unpacked my last car load of things by 1.20pm, giving me plenty of time to get back to the rental, just in time for my checkout viewing.