Moving to a new house and neighborhood is often an exciting and promising experience. With a new home in a new location, you get the chance to restart your life and embrace new challenges. However, you still have to deal with a few things before you can fully enjoy your new residence.
After packing all your things in boxes, the final part of the moving process is getting settled and reorganizing your items in your new space. The idea of reorganizing your new home may be overwhelming, considering that you’ll be unpacking so many boxes and rearranging a lot of bulky and heavy furniture. However, there’s no need to pressure yourself to get this done as soon as possible. Understand that this tedious process can take days, weeks, or even months, especially if you’re moving to a large home.
To guide you through this process, this article discusses seven home organization tips for those who are moving to their new residence.
- Craft A Thorough Plan
One of the common mistakes that homeowners make after moving to a new home is they try to rush and organize everything in a day or two. As a result, they end up opening and unpacking boxes in random and rearranging as much as they can without realizing that this only delays the whole organization process. If you really wish to finish organizing your new home in the fastest way possible, you need to craft a thorough plan on how and when you’ll start unpacking.
The best time to start creating your plan is the moment you start packing your boxes in your old house. Creating your plan at this early stage will allow you to assess each box and see how long you can unpack each one. For instance, if you need to pack everything in the master bedroom in six to seven boxes, this should give you an estimate on how long it will take you to unpack the same boxes once you arrive in your new home.
Keep this in mind as you pack the objects in the other rooms of the house. From there, you can more accurately estimate how long the whole unpacking and organization process will take.
Even your choice of hiring a moving company or not can affect the organization process of your new home. For instance, if you wish to go through the whole move on your own, keep in mind that loading and unloading the boxes can take much of your time. Meanwhile, if you hire a moving company like Thebigboymovers.com or other reputable service providers, you’ll have professional help in loading, unloading, and even assembling some of your furniture! Imagine the time you can save if a moving company can assist you.
- Deep Clean Your New House First
In your moving plan, make sure to include deep cleaning your new house. After all, it’ll be much easier to clean an empty house. Most of the time, homeowners arrive at their new house way before the movers arrive with the boxes they packed. So, while waiting for your things, use the time to clean everything in your new house. This may include mopping the floors, cleaning the carpets (if it’s carpeted), wiping the windows, and so on. For the countertops and drawers, wipe them off with a damp cloth. Meanwhile, you may consider hiring a cleaning service if the whole deep-cleaning process is too overwhelming for you or you don’t have the time. A sparkling house will remind you of your fresh start.
- Take Out The Boxes Of Essential Items
While packing, make sure to pack essential items in separate boxes and label them accordingly. Once you’ve moved in, start the reorganization process by unpacking these boxes of essential items. Your essentials usually consist of toiletries, gadgets, and other items you may need right away during your first days in your new home. This way, you can enjoy your morning coffee without rummaging through the other boxes to find your coffee pot.
- Map Out The Boxes In Their Designated Rooms
List down all the rooms and spaces in your new home. This may include the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, basement, attic, laundry room, and even the hallway if there’s one. Then, assign each room with a purpose. For instance, designate each bedroom for your family members or allocate a particular room for your home office, game room, or guest room. Distinguishing the purpose of each room will help you have a better envision of how you’ll organize your items later on.
Once your boxes arrive and are unloaded by the movers, you can ask for their assistance in placing the boxes—especially the heavy ones—into their designated rooms. This process may be faster if you label every box with your family member’s name or a particular room (e.g., the kitchen, bathroom, etc.). The same process applies to bulky furniture pieces like tables, dressers, and beds.
Generally, it’s always better to start with the larger furniture and bigger boxes and end with the smaller ones. This way, it’ll be easier for you to unpack or move the smaller things knowing that the bigger and heavier ones have already been taken care of.
- Unpack Room By Room, One At A Time
Now, the most-awaited and thrilling part is here—unpacking the boxes. As you’ll soon see, it’s more time and energy-efficient to put the boxes in their designated rooms. This way, you won’t have to walk around your new home figuring out where you should place each item. All you need to do is go to one room, unpack, arrange, and organize.
However, the question you may now have is, in which room should you start? It’s best to tackle the most critical rooms in your home first: the bedrooms, bathroom, and especially the kitchen. After all, the kitchen is considered one of the most complex and important rooms in the home. Plus, an organized kitchen will save you money from constantly ordering takeout food.
Organizing The Kitchen
Start by dividing your kitchen into different areas and label each area with post-it notes to make the process easier and faster. For instance, you can mark each space with labels like cooking area, cleaning area, food preparation area, food storage area, and so on.
- Food Storage Area: As the label suggests, this is where all your food will go. This area usually consists of the pantry, food cabinets, and the fridge. Then, unpack the boxes containing all the food and organize them in the area where you intended to place them. Canned goods, instant snacks, oils, and spices may go to the food cabinets and pantry, while frozen items should go to the fridge.
- Kitchenware: This area is for your silverware, glasses, dishware, and cookware. Make sure to store them in convenient areas such as drawers, kitchen cabinets, and pot racks. Meanwhile, if you have rarely used kitchenware, you can store them away in the higher part of the cabinets.
- Food preparation area: Your food prep area can be your kitchen counter or island area. By determining where you’ll prepare your food, you can organize your kitchen items more efficiently and place them nearby for easy access.
- Cooking area: This space may consist of the microwave, oven, stovetop, and range. You can store your pots and pans nearby for easy access. For the other appliances like food processors, mixers, and others, you can keep them away inside the cabinets if they’re only used occasionally.
- Cleaning area: This may feature the sink where you can store your dishwasher, dishcloths, dish detergent, and other cleaning supplies nearby.
If you’re living with younger kids and pets, make sure you install cabinet locks to prevent them from opening and playing with dangerous tools and equipment. If you’re living with teens or older kids, designate an area and fill it with quick snacks so they can easily access it anytime and hopefully foster independence.
Organizing The Bedrooms
Next in line are the bedrooms. If you’re living alone or moved into a new house alone, you can put the bedroom as the second priority. But if you’re moving with your family, you can ask your kids to help you out. In fact, while you’re unpacking the kitchen, you can assign your children to their individual bedrooms and let them start unpacking the boxes with their stuff. This allows each family member time to settle down and feel more at home with their own space. Moreover, if you let your children unpack their stuff, you’re encouraging them to personalize their space.
For the bedroom, start by taking out the current seasonal clothes or frequently worn clothes (e.g., uniform, sleeping outfit, casual clothes) and organizing them in the closets and drawers. Then, for the occasional outfits, you can put them away in deeper storage areas. Next, arrange the beds by unpacking the bed sheets, blankets, and pillows and putting them in place. Lastly, take care of the other bedroom essentials like lamps, mirrors, frames, and the like. Once you’re done with the first bedroom, you can move on to the next bedroom and repeat the process. The purpose is to put everything in place so everyone can settle into their personal space and feel more at home.
Setting Up The Bathroom
The next room to organize is the bathroom. The goal here is to arrange your bathroom essentials according to your routine. But if you’re sharing one bathroom with the rest of your family, ensure that you designate a drawer for each member so they’ll have space for the things they’ll use for their own routine. You can set up separate storage options or use drawer dividers in case your bathroom is a bit small. Remember, it’s all about being resourceful and creative.
Next, you may start installing the shower curtain and the hooks for your robes and towels. You may also begin organizing the extra towels and robes on the shelves or bathroom cabinets. Lastly, don’t forget to leave space for your clothes hamper.
Organizing The Living Room
Now that the three primary rooms are organized, it’s time to focus on the center of the house, which is the living room. Some homeowners may tackle the living room first before anything else—and that’s okay. After all, some people use this as their resting place after an exhausting day of unloading, unpacking, and organizing things.
The living room is often the easiest to unpack and organize, unlike the kitchen and bedroom. However, some of you may fall into the temptation of decorating the living room right away. As much as possible, when organizing any part of your home, always prioritize the functional items before the decorations. Leave the decorating part on the final part of the home organization.
You can start by organizing essential items such as sofa cushions, carpets, the coffee table, table lamps, and electronic devices. When installing the appliances or electronics in your living room, including your TV, radio, speakers, and lamps, make sure to store away the cords or keep them out of sight to prevent anyone from tripping on the wires.
Tackling The Other Rooms
With the main rooms taken care of, you can start unpacking the rest of the boxes with the other items for the laundry room, garage, attic, and basement. Since most of these rooms aren’t always used, you can leave them for the weekend when the entire family is available. This way, you can divide the family into smaller groups and assign each person to help organize the other rooms.
Not only will this make the unpacking process faster and easier, but this can also be a fun activity for everyone. The more involved the entire family is in unpacking and organizing the house, the more they’ll feel at home and have a sense of fulfillment.
- Keep Everything In Order
Once everything is finally in their designated places and almost all the boxes have been unpacked, make an effort to keep everything in order. For instance, always remind everyone to make their beds and arrange their closets every day or wash the dishes immediately after every meal. Learning to put things away after each use will keep your new residence organized and clean.
- Decorate And Add Finishing Touches
As mentioned earlier, it’s always best to leave the decorating part last so you can take your time to decide how you’re going to beautify and decorate your new home. Now that you’re free from the pressure of having to unpack several boxes, you can savor the ‘home decorating’ moment and be free to add any decoration you wish. You can also involve your family in the decorating process for a more enjoyable experience.
Wrapping Up
With these tips, it will be easier for you to unpack and organize your brand-new home. Sooner or later, you and your family will be able to live in a clean and well-organized home without being surrounded by unpacked boxes.
