7 Fun Things To Do Before The Movers Arrive

It’s funny – even the mere thought of what you must do before your movers arrive is enough to make you throw your arms in despair and admit defeat. Unfortunately, this upcoming myriad of essential things to do before movers come is not funny as in “I just can’t stop laughing!”, but rather as in the “That’s funny – the jobs I’m supposed to do just can’t seem to end” kind of way.

• Create a moving budget to monitor your expenses; [budgeting]

• Organize your time through a personal moving calendar [time management];

• Purge your home of all no longer needed items [purging];

• Be aware of what your residential packers and movers neither pack nor transport for safety reasons [non-allowables];

• Create a detailed home inventory [home inventory];

• Separate and organize your belongings in a way that makes sense [moving organization];

• Discover the power of pre-packing and labeling [packing timeline];

• Prepare your furniture pieces to be packed and moved [antique furniture];

• Introduce move related safety measures to keep everybody safe and injury-free [stay safe],

are only a small taste of the serious work ahead of you. However, the majority of the fundamental pre-move tasks listed above, if not all, are no fun at all. They only show the best way to prepare for movers and will, without a doubt, prove extremely practical and valuable during your preparation stage.

And yet, despite the general belief that moving house is no laughing matter, it’s really up to you to try to discover the fun in your residential move, and thus make the entire relocation process a notch or two more pleasant for everyone involved, especially for yourself.

Read on to find the top 7 fun things to do before movers arrive at your door:

1. Part with your old home in style

It may be hard to realize at first but saying goodbye to your soon-to-be old home doesn’t have to be a sad experience. If you’ve been fortunate enough to have filled that place with predominantly happy memories during your time under its roof, then it’s time to take a slow walk inside and even outside the structure you’re leaving behind, and try to remember some of the best moments you’ve had there.

Visit each room together with your family and encourage each member to take turns recalling something enjoyable and amusing that happened – a fun memory from the past. You may choose to record these important narratives through the help of a digital camera or a smartphone, or why not organize a drawing contest between yourselves? Of course, whoever manages to illustrate those exciting stories the best will be awarded the title Keeper of the Memories.

It’s important to remember the fun times before the movers come but the actual act of saying goodbye to your home holds a special significance too. Just before you need to leave the house or apartment for good, don’t forget to say your goodbyes to each room and close each door as a sign that you’re ready to move on with your life.

2. Say proper good-bye to your friends

Yes, saying goodbye to the place that you have called home is significant and you can easily turn it into a fairly fun experience. Still, however dear it may be for you, your house remains nothing but a durable structure to keep you sheltered from the unfavorable elements of Mother Nature. What matter are the persons you have shared your life with, and since you’re most likely moving as a family unit, it’s time to turn your utmost attention to the friends you’re leaving behind.

Well, parting with good friends is never much fun, but you should take sad goodbyes to another level by finding time to relive a favorite activity with each of your pals. It’s time to concentrate on the things that you enjoy doing as friends rather than ponder about why your paths are going into different directions.

Do find time in your busy moving calendar to watch a movie together, play your favorite game, visit special places that connect you, go fishing if that is what you enjoy, have a meal at your preferred restaurant, or simply do other fun things together.

Whichever way you choose to assure your friends how much they mean to you, just make sure you do it before the movers arrive on Moving day.

3. Throw a farewell party to remember

Depending on your unique point of view, saying your goodbyes to your memory-filled home and dear friends may not exactly be classified as great fun, especially if you tend to focus on the more negative side of things. However, of all the fun things to do before the movers arrive, what could possibly be more fun than a party with your closest friends and good neighbors?

The best thing about organizing a farewell party shortly before your move-out date is that it doesn’t have to be anything fancy, and what’s more, no one will expect anything too special from you knowing the transitional period you’re in right now. Think of it as an informal get-together kind of affair where you will have the chance to spend some care-free time with the people that you care about before you walk bravely into the unknown future.

So, what to do before movers arrive and kind of spoil the fun? Get a good deal of refreshing drinks and tasty snacks, get hold of some nice music and simply invite your friends over for a bit of genuine entertainment before the “real” entertainment starts on Moving day.

4. Give away or donate some of your items

The more Moving day approaches, the more often you will wonder how to prepare for movers and packers, and whether the things you’ve done are anywhere near enough to guarantee a smooth move. Interestingly enough, some of the tasks you complete prior to your scheduled move-out date will not only help you save considerable amount of time and loads of money, but they will let you have some fun while doing it. You find it hard to believe that?

The best example of an act that will let you win on several levels is to give away some of your belongings to good friends who will cherish them more than you do, or to donate to charity your no longer needed items. By doing it, you will not only gain precious time as you won’t have to worry about packing and transporting these very items, but you will also save money because fewer items to transport mean less weight, and less weight means lower transportation costs.

But where is the fun in that generous act, you may ask? Remember few things can compare to the fun and satisfaction you will get by making your friends happy through thoughtful gifts they will certainly appreciate, or by helping an unknown stranger in need.

5. Become a professional photographer for a day

Even if photography is not your cup of tea, you will find out that going around your home and snapping pictures of each room with a digital camera or a smartphone in hand can be unexpectedly enjoyable. Be spontaneous! Be creative! View your entire house or apartment through the viewfinder or LCD display of your camera like you’ve never seen it before. And most importantly, have fun while going on a photo tour inside your own home.

In addition to the amusement of being a professional photographer for one day, documenting the exterior and interior of your home just before the movers come can also play two important roles for you in the future.

The first role of your photos is purely practical – they can serve as proof of the condition of your place just before you have left it and the condition of your belongings whether they are already packed or not.  Hopefully, you won’t need to present that evidence but should the need to do so arise, the pictures will help you file a damage claim with your professional movers.

The second function of having all the fun of photographing your home is to keep the photos as reminiscence of a time period in your life that you can never get back. Arrange the best of them in a photo album to keep the memories alive.

6. “Steal” a memento from your old place

Knowing what to do to prepare for movers gives you a sense of assurance that you’re doing the right things in the right order, and that ultimately, your house move will be crowned with success. Unfortunately, most of those must-do jobs are no fun at all and you won’t be too thrilled to get them done. Still, if you don’t find a good way to keep yourself motivated and entertained at the same time, nobody else will do it for you.

One of the absolute fun things to do before movers come is to think of a perfectly meaningful piece of your current but soon-to-be former home to take with you. Believe it or not, the puzzling yet exciting thought of what exactly to keep as a souvenir from the place you’ve lived in until now is half the fun. You need something relatively small and moveable but still infused with great and sweet memories. What should it be?

The door handle of the room that meant the most for you through the years?

A transplantable plant or a young tree to relocate to your new home’s garden?

Pressed leaves from your favorite maple tree by the house?

A glass jar of soil from your private garden by the driveway?

It’s meaningful to keep such good memories alive as they can help you escape from the vicious clutches of post relocation depression.

7. Re-design your new home (in your head)

While thinking about how to prepare your house for movers, you may find it pretty enjoyable to actually project your thoughts past the upcoming move and try to visualize what your new home will look like. After all, it’s much healthier for you focus on the foreseeable future than try to dig into the past. And besides, you must surely have some great and innovative ideas about how you want to decorate and (re-)design the place you’re moving into very soon.

Have you even wanted to become an interior designer? If yes, your move is the perfect opportunity for you to prove your designer skills and have a bit of fun before your movers arrive too. Create a floor plan of your new residence to prevent unpleasant situations and costly mistakes in advance. By having an accurate map of the destination home, you will know what furniture pieces to move simply because you will know what will fit the space and match the interior. Also, you can plan where exactly each large furniture piece or heavy household appliance will go so that they won’t get moved around once they are delivered to and possibly installed/re-assembled on their designated spots.

Above all else, one of the really fun things to do before you move house is to use the power of your imagination to arrange and decorate the interior of your new home exactly the way you want it. What a sweet thought, isn’t it?

Bonus ideas to have fun while preparing for professional movers

As a rule of thumb, the process of moving from one home to another is seldom a fun-packed adventure to look forward to. On the contrary, often regarded as one of life’s most stressful events, a house move can put a family’s savings, time and nerves to the test.

Nevertheless, it’s up to you to turn your ordinary move into an extraordinary one by managing to find the hidden fun in some of the tasks during the preparation stage. So, while wondering what to do before movers come, why don’t you have some great time with these 3 bonus fun ideas when moving house?

• Bonus idea 1: Keep your sense of humor pretty much alive during the house moving adventure even if everyone around you thinks you don’t have one. [check your sense of humor];

• Bonus idea 2: Do you like playing games? Of course you do. Now, you may only think that moving is anything but a game but in reality, that’s exactly what it is – a fairly complicated moving game with its own set of rules where winners take it all, and losers always get a second chance. [play the ultimate moving game];

• Bonus idea 3: The biggest fun of all the things to do before your movers come? Finish the preparation ahead of time and take a well-earned break (at least one full day!) prior to Moving day. Make sure you spend that day in the most enjoyable and exciting way you can think of, even if that means staying in bed with a good book from morning till dawn. You’ve earned it! [see post relocation rewards]

Can you think of other fun things to do before your movers arrive?

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