Recently a lot of people searching for clues for shifting house/moving house from google and ended on my blog, I guess those people are looking for ideas/checklist and here you go, I've updated the list of things to keep in mind.
1. List of thing to clean up your new house/apartment. Things like broom, cloth, soap powder, water hose and etc.
2. Ensure basic utilities are ready like electricity and water.
3. You might want to hire professional (more expensive) or semi-pro house mover to help you move your furniture to new house/apartment (if you have existing furniture that you wanted to keep or still brand new).
4. Drink plenty of water because you easily get dehydrated and fall sick.
5. Few extra t-shirt to change cause I ensure you that you gonna sweat a lot.
6. Try to do the house moving in Saturday so that you get a day of rest rather than going to work on the next day.
7. Delegate your work, cause you can never be able to do everything on your own. Get some helps from friends or families.
8. Get ready with cash/cheques cause you will need to settle bills for your new furniture and labour cost.
9. The very important thing, planned the arrival of furniture separately rather in one shot, else you will have headache to monitor all the movement of the workers. You definitely do not want to have your furniture to have scratches.
10. You might want to pre-check with the wheather forecast. You certainly do not want to move house on rainy day. It is too much of mess to deal with.
Wow it have been quite a tiring experience of shifting house. I recently moved in to my new house. Previously, when I was still single, moving house is just like moving room only because all my belongings will only reside within the room. So it is kind like peanut to move around. But now, after having family. The shifting thing is for the whole house. God knows how many things we have in the apartment after staying there for 2 years. We used to rent out a room for our friend. After she moved out, we used the room as a storeroom/garage. Initially, only one of the corner was occupied with our "rubbish". After 2 years, the "rubbish" was stacked as tall as the room's height. It occupied all the 3 corners (except the door corner, else I wouldn't be able to open the room's door). It was like a nightmare when I need to pack all the things up. Luckily SF still on holiday, else I wonder how am I going to finish packing all the "rubbish".
There are some furnitures that are still brand new from my apartment that can be reused (it was only 1 or 2 yrs old). So we decided to temporary reuse it for a while (there are so many other expenses that we need to take care of, so if can thrifty, then be a bit thrifty lor). I rented a truck to help me move the stuff. Wow it cost me a boom. 1 trip of truck = $80, workers charges = $50. It took me 2 trip to move the bigger stuff to my new house. I decided to use my avanza to move the smaller smaller stuff that we have packed in the box. This can help to save money a bit. So a total of $260 just to move the furniture ONLY.
On 29 Sept itself, I split myself into few parts. One part to take care of the furniture moving. One part to take care of the installation of air-conditioner (with the help from ah Ling). One part to supervise my maid in cleaning up the house. One part .. ehhh . forgotten liao .. So it was a very very tiring experience. You must be wondering why I cramped everything in 1 day. I've just changed job to my new company. I have very limited leave till end of the year. I only have 5 days since I joined in mid-July. I have already utilised 1 day for baby and another day for house renovation. So I have no other choice of doing all the thing in one day. SF cannot help to supervise the renovation thing cause our baby Ningx2 scared of the drilling sound. So it is better that SF stay in the apartment with the baby.
0n 30 Sept, we officially moved in to the new house. Mom & dad came over to carry out the traditional chinese ceremony for moving in to the new house. Lots of thing to prepare. Sis did came over as well. According to mom, for the first day in new house, we need to cook a proper meal and have dinner in the house. So mom was busy preparing few dishes at home. Yi Hang, Sis's son, was so naughty that he broke my $250++ bottle of perfumes. Luckily I have already used up 1/4 of it, else sakit hati.
On 1 Oct, more renovation to be done. I've asked the electrician to install water heater in the bathroom and install the astro for us. The water heater part was pretty easy that he just drill the wall and install it. But the astro part was a bit tricky. Apparently according to the electrician, my house contractor does not put the astro line properly. Hence the wiring was a bit hair wire. He helped me to fix it. It was very kind of him in helping me to install the astro although it was raining. Then the disastrous news came, my decoder spoil. Apparently the newer decoder is very sensitive to shock. I might have accidentally shake the astro box while shifting it to the new house. It cost me $165 to fix the decoder. Money again. In the evening, we decided to go to Ikea to grab some deco and stuff for the house. We bought a coffee table, clock, dustbin, toilet accesories and etc. Wow, $$$$$ again .... It is not an easy matter of having a new house. Everything is $$$$$ ..