Hello again 🙂

Last six months have been really overwhelming for me, which is why, I was not able to write for the longest time. But, you know what they say, that’s why we’re beginners. And, I am still a newbie, girl-next-door blogger. So, to keep it short, in last six months, I have changed job, got married, moved into a new house, still designing the new place, tried to do meal planning, and also struggling to be a better engineer everyday. And, HAVE NOT WRITTEN ANYTHING FOR THE LONGEST TIME. Hopefully, this will change from now.

So, segway….. to….. drum roll……. a new topic for this week – Moving to a new place. Today, I am going to share my experience of moving out and moving in. The theme of this blog will always be the same — everyday struggles/life and so on for 20-something. In this century, moving in and moving out is a HUUUGE part of our lives and I think it is shifting to much less age groups too. Now teenagers and kids in early 20s are doing this much more than their predecessors used to. So, I thought, why not address this topic and why not share my experience with everyone of you :).

So Moving in starts with… Moving out. So few things which I had to take care of for moving out was:

MOVING OUT

Buying Moving Boxes

So, back in India, the way I used to move was to pack my clothes in suitcases and then just book a moving service who pack everything else and transport it to your new location. Some services also help you unload and unpack the furniture. But, Living in Sweden, there are services like these but so expensive. And, actually, no one here uses the service to pack. So how do they pack? Well, here you can buy moving boxes from any store. That’s how you pack your stuff. So before moving out, we used some old boxes as well as bought some new boxes to organize our stuff better.

Packing

Now, buying moving boxes is one task. But to pack, is a messy one altogether. What I have learnt, is following a few steps like this:

• Start room by room. DO NOT MIX YOUR THINGS FROM DIFFERENT ROOMS. AND LABEL YOUR BOXES.
• Don’t make the boxes too heavy so that you’re not even able to lift. It’s better to have more boxes rather than heavy boxes.
• Try to put only clothes in trolleys and luggage. That saves the boxes as well as easier to unpack.
• Take extra care while packing your fragile stuff like crockery, glass utensils and other breakable things. What we did was stuffing those things along with pillows and quilts. You can also buy bubble wraps here in stores too and wrap the breakable things in that.
• If you have Ikea furniture and you’re going to disassemble it, make sure to pack the small connectors, nails, nuts and other related things in labelled packets. It’s very easy to lose them otherwise.
• Try putting all the decoration items in one box. It’s super-fun to unpack that box and have a stress-buster. (MOVING IS STRESSFUL, BRO !!)
• All tapes, scissors and other packing material at last and keep it SAFE and EASY to reach.

And, voila, we have packed everything :).

Cleaning

So, back in India, we are not used to cleaning our apartments after moving out, because probably the owners want them to clean it by themselves. But this is from way back in 2014. Let me know in the comments below, how it is now in India.

Anyway, so cleaning, especially in Sweden, in my opinion, is the toughest job to do. Because here cleaning is not just wiping the floor and emptying the apartment. Let me give you a checklist of what we had before handing over the keys back:

• Wipe the floors and vacuum every room.
• Clean all the windows and the window panes with universal cleaner. Dry them out as well so no bubbles or water spots are there.
• Clean the chimneys or exhausts if there are any.
• Check above the closets and remove any dust.
• Clean kitchen sinks, pipes and other water inlets.
• Clean the stoves and scrape any dirtiness.
• Clean the washroom and the water outlet and the pipe under the shower.
• Fill any drilled holes with acrylic cement and remove any tapes or stickiness from the wall completely.
• Remove all bulbs and external wiring which is not part of the house when you moved in.

And, that’s pretty much it. But making sure all of this along with the stress of moving, It’s always best to hire a cleaning company because they are SOOOOO perfect in this. We were very relieved to see the extremely cleaned apartment which we would not have been able to do ourselves.

This completes the moving out part.

MOVING IN

Well, as much as the moving out is stressful, Moving in, for me, turned out to be a huge stress-buster. Lots of boxes, a fresh new apartment, a blank canvas.

Here’s my experience of moving in and what I did to make it as fun and stress free as possible:

Fixing Furniture

We transported our furniture through moving company and disassembled most of the stuff. So the first thing we did was to assemble it again – the bed, table and couch.

Putting out curtains and carpets

Curtains make the place look more cozy and nice. And, for an empty apartment, it is important to make it feel more comfortable and more like home. And curtains, in my opinion just give that feeling. And, the same goes with carpets too. Once we set them, we felt like home. Try it for yourself, and you’ll feel the same.

Setting up books

For me, I am big fan of books and not the Kindle ones. The real ones. And we have so many books in so many genres. I tried to make an habit of reading and now I can’t get enough of it. I always want to read more and even though, being a slow reader, I try to finish the book I started before taking up a new one. So as a reader, a cute book shelf is all you need (and of course books).

Decorations

For me, unpacking this box was the most fun. I can give you my word, that Moving is stressful and not a super-fun activity. You’re constantly running, using your old clothes, packing, unpacking, shifting stuff, and trying to remember everything else which you need to. So, it is very important that we keep ourselves happy and as stress-free as possible. And once you’re super-tired with all the unpacking and setting up, and want to take a break, Just start with the decorations box. It’s very calming and makes your brain go wild with creativity. And for me, that was the most fun stuff to do. Try it out, it really works.

Utility Stuff

This is another important one to remember. The utility stuff includes the tapes, scissors, plastics, bags and everything which you are going to need just in everyday. If you have managed to pack it nicely together in an organized way, then consider it your win as it is one of the most important and one of the easiest things to lose.

Also, another important thing is to manage your keys. key to new apartment and old apartment. One you return and One you keep. What we did to make sure we don’t lose the right one, is to change the key-chains immediately when we get them. So the new keys will have our old key-chains or key-rings and the old ones will be all set to be returned.

And then, its just regular bunch of stuff which you can always spread over the week and slowly start taking out things as you need them. I hope you had a good time reading about my experience and I wish to hear from you as well and some hacks which you created for yourself.

Meanwhile, Happy reading and Happy weekend 🙂

Tags: moving, shifting, house decor, apartments