Family & downsizing
Family and downsizing moves in Edgware
Most Edgware moving happens in two directions: a family growing into a bigger semi, or a couple leaving the family house after a very long time. They are not the same job.
A growing family, a bigger semi
- Usually local — a few roads away, sometimes the next street. That makes it tempting to do in car loads, and it almost always takes longer and costs more than doing it properly in one day.
- The volume is bigger than people expect because it includes a child's worth of things that were not there last time anyone moved.
- Both ends are often occupied the same day, so the order of loading matters: what comes off first has to be what makes the new house liveable by the evening.
- Nursery furniture, cots and bunk beds come apart and go back together by hand, in the room they belong in.
Leaving the family house
- A long-stay house, often thirty or forty years in it, with a loft and a garage that are genuinely full.
- The hard part is not carrying — it is deciding. We work through the house at a pace that leaves room for that, rather than loading everything and making it someone else's problem at the other end.
- Furniture that will not fit the new place gets identified at the survey, not discovered on the pavement. Where something is going to family rather than with you, we plan the collection rather than improvising it.
- A good share of these moves need storage in the middle, because the new place completes on a different day from the old one.
What we do differently on a long-stay house
Four things, none of them expensive, all of them the difference between a calm week and a miserable one.
- We survey in person more often
- A long-stay house is hard to assess on video, because the volume is in the places a camera does not naturally go — the back of the garage, the far end of the loft, the cupboard under the stairs.
- We box in smaller sizes
- Books, papers and crockery in small cartons rather than large ones. It makes more boxes and a safer day, and it makes unpacking at the other end genuinely possible.
- We label by room and by priority
- Two labels, not one. The second says whether the box is wanted tonight or next month, which matters enormously in a downsize where not everything gets unpacked at once.
- We do not rush the last hour
- The walk round at the end is not a formality on these moves. It is when people notice what has been forgotten, and there is still a vehicle outside to do something about it.
Family and downsizing — common questions
We have lived here thirty years. Where do we start?
With the survey, before you start sorting. Knowing what the volume actually is makes the deciding far easier, and it means you are not throwing things out under time pressure because someone told you the van was too small.
Can you move some of it to family and some of it with us?
Yes, and it is common. Tell us at survey so both drops are in the plan and in the figure. Doing it as one job is cheaper and calmer than two.
What if the new place is smaller and things will not fit?
We measure the awkward pieces at survey and, where you know the new dimensions, we will tell you plainly what is not going to work. Better to know now than to watch a wardrobe fail to get through a door.
Do you help with the sorting?
We will pack whatever you have decided to take, and we will happily work alongside you while you decide. What we will not do is clear the house — that is a different trade under a different licence.
Can things go into storage while we sort out dates?
Yes. Containerised and listed on the way in, which matters more on a downsize than anything else — you want to find one box later without opening all of them.
Moving after a long time in one house?
Tell us roughly where things stand. We will arrange a look round before you start sorting, which makes the sorting far easier.