Moving House

Found via Pinterest

Things have been a little quiet on here for the past few weeks as the mister and I have been busy flat hunting. We've lived in our current place for almost four years now and although it is lovely (fireplace, window seat oh my!) it's also tiny and too far from my work. A daily commute of almost four hours all-in just isn't fun. So we've been looking for a new flat which will give us more space and is closer to my work, but without having to pay an eye-watering level of rent in exchange.

As much as I love noseying around new places, there's something about the pressure of finding a new flat in enough time to enable you to move out of your old place without too much overlap or spending huge amounts of money that fills me with dread. My goodness, there are some horrible flats out there too - dark, dingy, smelly, damp places, being rented for far too much money. Ugh.

After a day of wandering around a succession of no-hopers and getting more and more apprehensive in the process, we arranged a viewing in a slightly different area to the one we'd planned on moving to and loved it immediately. We learned this week that we passed our reference checks with flying colours and now I can actually start to get excited about moving! The new flat is in a lovely Edwardian house, with gorgeous high ceilings and wooden floors. We'll have an extra room, which we'll turn into a spare room/study, and we even have a small garden! I've started planning a vegetable patch and summer BBQs...I can't wait.

Image found via Pinterest, but
originally from here

We've got a fair amount to get done over the next few weeks though before I can start choosing which vegetables to grow, plotting the layout of the spare room and deciding where to hang our pictures on our new walls. I've already started making lists of things we need to do - book a removal van and cleaner, order boxes, reminders to redirect post and cancel utilities - and the next few weeks will (must!) be a whirlwind of packing and organising. It's amazing how much you accumulate over the course of a few years in one place, even a very small one, so it'll be a good chance to go through as much as possible with a critical eye and throw out, or donate, a good few things. Well, I say that now, hopefully I won't be just haphazardly throwing things into boxes the night before the removal van's due to arrive!

Any tips for making the moving process as stress-free (and economical) as possible?!