Moving Day! What to expect before, after and on moving day itself?
The big moving day is here! I believed you have chosen a moving company, checked off the boxes in the checklist for moving house and most importantly, packed your stuff. Now, what can you expect before, after and on a moving day?
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Related Posts:
- Checklist for Moving House and Packing Tips
- My Experience with Moving Companies in Singapore (Review)
Before the Movers are here
What’s a good day to move?
A good day to move is when you can take the day off from work and everything else. A day when you have no other plans. Moving is going to be a whole day affair and it’s going to be tiring even though you are not doing the heavy lifting.
Thus, arrange for an early time to move. In case there’s any delay (such as weather conditions), the move is less likely to slip into the night when visibility is lower and more neighbours are back home. Even if the movers are super fast and you end early, you can still spend the rest of the day unpacking the essentials and start living in the new place.
You also need to move on a day when you have the manpower. You will need to have at least two persons at the moving site – one stationed at the old house and the other at the new house. You’ll see why later. Also, you might need a trusted friend or family member to take care of your children or pets until the move is completed, partly for safety reasons. This is one of the to-dos on my checklist for moving.
Get Packing Boxes
Decide on a mover early on so that they can provide you with the boxes to pack. After reaching out to different movers in Singapore, I engaged TSL Mover in the end. It is a moving and storage company that provides packing, storage, and moving services. It is part of TSL Logistics which was founded in 2003. Read till the end to find out if I will consider them again in future.
Depending on your mover, some might give you a certain number of free boxes and charge you for additional ones. For TSL Mover, they didn’t give any free new boxes but I am glad they provide the option of getting recycled boxes for free. Environmentally and pocket friendly. If you prefer new boxes for your items, it’s at S$3.00/box with a refund of S$2.00/box.
Patrick from TSL Mover is the main contact point for the move. I messaged him at about 1130PM to see if his team can send me boxes the next day. I planned for him to read my message early in the morning and hence did not expect an immediate reply. But alas, he replied, and his team sent me the boxes early the next morning. Yay! I could continue the packing.
I had started packing earlier with the boxes my friend passed me from her recent house move. So if you know of any friends who shifted recently, get the boxes and recycle them! 🙂
Pack Ahead
We started our packing many days in advance but didn’t see the enormity of our possessions until towards the moving date. Then I panicked and the packing intensified. Would we be able to pack everything in time?
It’s good to start early but don’t rest on your laurels. You can start early from the storeroom because items in there are not frequently used. Pick up your packing pace as the days progress. We usually have more things than we think, so don’t be blindsided like us. Otherwise, you can pay for packing services provided by some moving companies.
Worth mentioning again from my moving house checklist: start clearing your fridge early. Eat whatever you can in the fridge and try not to stock up your fridge days before your move. It’s best to empty your fridge and switch off the power at least one day before. This is to prevent condensation during the move. Also, certain contents might rattle inside during the move, spoiling the fridge or leaving a mess. Our kind neighbour kept our essential food items in their fridge the night before.
You can still put some items in the fridge, mainly non-fragile and non-saucy items. My mover did a check on the items inside the fridge and packed the stuff tight so they wouldn’t roll around. He added some other loose items I didn’t manage to pack into the boxes in the fridge too.
Plan Ahead
As you pack, try to group the packed boxes by their rooms. This can help in the flow of unloading into your new place – the movers wouldn’t need to go back and forth to different rooms.
Discuss and plan this ahead: how and where you want to arrange the boxes and furniture in your new place. In this way, you wouldn’t need to re-arrange them yourselves after the moving muscles are gone. As mentioned in my previous article, take measurements of your new place to make sure your furniture arrangement fits. If the piece doesn’t fit, you will have to make decisions on your feet when the movers are waiting for your further instructions.
Moving involves much sweat and strength. So, appreciate the movers with some drinks or/and food. I prepared some packets of drinks for them. But our team of movers was bigger than expected – two main employees and two seemingly part-timers. Hence my husband went downstairs to get drinks for them instead. They requested non-gassy drinks such as green tea and lemon tea. My guess is that they want to avoid a sugar crash where one would have a sudden drop in energy levels after consuming large amounts of carbohydrates.
During the Move
Let’s Start!
The time to move stated in the quotation is 9:00 AM. However, the day before the move, Patrick said that his team of movers will only reach from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM and will take about 3 to 5 hours to complete a whole unit move. (For our house move, it took 6 hours, even though the distance between the two places is near.) I was a bit stressed to hear about the timing because of lunch and childcare arrangements. I requested the team to come earlier if possible, to which Patrick said they would go over it once they finish their delivery. Hmm?
So we thought we still had time to slowly pack our last few boxes on the morning of our moving day. Alas, the team reached at 9:00 AM sharp. Hmm?! I was freaking out when I saw them. We had not finished packing! “No worries, continue to pack as we move,” said the team leader nonchalantly. I reckon this is a common scenario because the movers were unfazed by this last-minute packing. However, the movers were moving at such a fast speed that I frantically shoved our things into boxes or whatever empty tote or plastic bags were around me.
At the old place
Most moving companies dismantle furniture as part of their service. The movers will then assemble them at the new place. Look out for bits and pieces such as screws, bolts and nuts on the floor. These might have been dropped during the dismantling and you would need them to assemble back the furniture.
With cling wraps, TSL Mover wraps big items such as bedframes and moveable wardrobes. Hence you don’t need to clear out these wardrobes into boxes. For example, my children’s clothes remain in their IKEA cabinets. This saves me a lot of time packing and unpacking. Furthermore, we have many storage boxes that didn’t need to be cleared out into carton boxes too. The movers wrapped our storage boxes and moved them. So we just needed to arrange the boxes instead of the items in the boxes at our new place.
All our items are moved to the lift landing before congregating again at the lift lobby to the pickup point on the ground floor. Felt so “naked” for the whole world to see our personal possession laid out in open.
Your mover should have their preferred way of the loading order of items, after all, they have the experience and expertise. For example, loading big items like bedframes and cupboards into the moving truck last, so they can unload and arrange these big items at the new place before the boxes arrive.
At the new place
Once the movers are almost done clearing out your old place, you can station a trusted friend or a family member at your new home. This is to make sure everything is placed in the right order in the new house.
Or you can be the one at the new place, while the other trusted person does a last sweep of the house and lock the door. This is a final check to make sure everything, including valuables, has been moved over to your new place. Are the drawers completely cleared out? Are the switches and power points off? Turn off the main power and water supply to avoid chalking up extra utility bills.
Lunch Break
You can check with the team on their lunch break to plan for your lunch. I waited for some time at my old place for the movers to return for a second round. However, after unloading the first round in the new place, they told us they were going for a quick 40 minutes lunch. Instead of waiting earlier on, I could have gone out to grab lunch unhurriedly and return for the second round.
Overall, we are satisfied with the movers at TSL Mover. They are efficient and yet at the same time, they handled our items with care.
After the Move
On moving day
If you still have energy after the move, count and go through the boxes with your inventory list. This is to make sure all boxes are moved and accounted for.
We stayed up late the previous night to pack, and so after 6 hours of the move, we were exhausted. So we simply did a quick check on the boxes and big items to make sure they were not missing. We unpacked our essentials (from our small luggage meant for easy access) to make sure the children and us could shower and sleep in fresh clothes for the night. Then we unpacked perishables for the fridge. Everything else can wait, so get some rest!
Days after moving day
Take the next one or two weeks to unpack. Open one box at a time and think of how you want to organise the items in your new space and arrange them. You can use this time to reassess your items too – keep, throw or give. Try not to empty many boxes at the same time. You might feel overwhelmed and end up chucking the items here and there. This will clutter up your space leading you to go through another round of packing up, unless you don’t mind living in clutter.
From experience, the adrenaline would push us to unpack many of the boxes until the last 10 or so boxes (basically non-non-essentials). Don’t rush into packing but don’t stop the unpacking momentum, otherwise, the inertia will seep in.
Remember to update your new address with your banks, employers, schools, and many more. Go through this helpful checklist for moving house to be well-prepared. On another note, you can find out how much it costs to move house in Singapore in “My Experience with Moving Companies in Singapore”.
Have any interesting moving experience? Share them in the comments section below. 🙂
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