Moving into a new home is stressful, but you don’t need to be told that. We all know that no matter how well we plan a house move, the act of picking up your life anchor and moving it to a completely new place can feel somewhat overwhelming from time to time, even if you’re 100% sure this is absolutely the right move and you’ll be happy there.
Luckily, this stress is easy to deal with. The excitement, the feeling of a new beginning, and the adventure of it all can vastly outweigh those feelings, to the point where moving doesn’t necessarily feel like a chore, but a great activity helping you transition to a new life.
But after you’ve used the best local movers and you’ve packed everything properly, how should you focus on integrating yourself into your new home and making sure everything is to your own liking? Well, if you’re lucky, the previous owner will have cleaned and make sure the space is suitable for moving in as part of your deal. Yet from here, the autonomy is all yours. Let’s consider some advice to help you in that manner:
Set Up Your Utilities
Setting up utilities is essential, because of course, living without them can be quite tiring and uncomfortable. To some degree, this should be resolved before you move in. Contacting the water company, for instance, to ensure that your billing is set up can be important, as can making sure you have electricity and gas access. However, it might be that router installation is necessary to hook your home up with the latest fibre broadband, or perhaps installing a satellite dish for your premium television channels is a priority of yours.
As such, booking these utilities for the day after you move in can be helpful, allowing you to get on with the job of establishing your life without worrying about the utilities you’ll use to live it. Depending on where you live, it might be that opting in to certain community considerations, such as paying a communal gardener or paying for garbage collection can be essential.
Ensure Home Security
Staying secure is important to matter what home you’re in, and you’ll be liable to take a renewed interest in this when you have a family to think about. For this reason, ensuring home security is well established can be important. Installing motion-sensitive floodlights along your driveway, oiling the gate, making sure that your ‘beware of the dog!’ sign is placed on your garden fence if necessary, and changing the locks properly can all be an appropriate measure to take soon after moving in.
Furthermore, making sure certain home installations are well repaired or utilized can be worth your time. This might involve having the window locks replaced thanks to how insecure they are, or replacing an outside hatch that leads into your basement with a sturdier, less accessible option will bear fruit. Of course, another great way to enhance your communal safety is to:
Meet Your Neighbors
Communal spirit is a healthy virtue to have when living in an area, even if it’s remote. That said, you don’t have to break out the party invitations just yet, because meeting your neighbors is also highly practical.
Simply knocking on their door and greeting them, letting them know you live in a certain house and it’s nice to meet them can be all you need to get a read on who you’re living near. Some neighbors may be very happy to see you and welcoming. These people will almost always be involved in community life to some extent, even if that means trading numbers and keeping the community abreast of suspicious goings-on.
Some neighbors you will never speak to again after this encounter. That’s fine too. At the very least, you’ll have more of an understanding about where you live, what the limits of social life may be, and how to make the most of it.
Implement Minor Repairs
Even newly built houses aren’t without their idiosyncrasies and wear or tear. Minor repairs can be helpful to implement then, if only to make sure that a small issue doesn’t become a big issue.
It might just be that putting some oil on the door hinges and garage chain is necessary. Sometimes, chips in the paintwork that occurred thanks to your own personal unpacking of your belongings in a clumsy manner need to be addressed, lest that task bother you for years despite never getting around to it.
Sometimes, you might notice that the previous owners left an issue unattended to, such as a broken window in the barn outside. Implementing these repairs can help you make sure your home is in good condition, and that you can start life there via the cleanest slate possible.
If it is something a little more severe such as looking at changing the floors or windows, then this is something that you need to take more time with. Don’t try and do this as soon as you have moved in if it can wait a week or so as you’re going to have to think through this carefully. You don’t want to jump into anything and regret it afterwards. Look at different options such as epoxy garage floor cost, and more before you make a final choice too so that you can ensure you’re not spending more unnecessary money.
Orient The Space
It’s a good idea to give yourself some time to think about how you might establish your furniture in each room as you move everything in, just to make sure you’ve encouraged the most amount of natural light hits the space.
This effort can take place more easily if you establish the bulkier and more foundational items of furniture in each room. From there you can begin to decorate at your own pace, and make sure that each decoration is paced enough so as not to overcrowd a given room. Here you can also begin your ability to curate proper storage, and make sure that everything you own is in the right place. For the organizers among you, getting this resolved sooner rather than later can lead to peace of mind.
Take A Full Inventory
Last but not least – make sure to take a full inventory of the items in your household, including pictures of valuable items and the rooms of your house.
This can help you not only track how your home may change with time, but where your belongings are, what possessions you own should an insurance claim need to be made, as well as charting just what belongings you want to keep in mind.
With this advice, you can more easily enjoy moving into your home while making sure everything is taken care of.
