We all know that moving house can be a tricky business. Along with getting married and having a child, it’s one of the most stressful things you can do in life – so it usually ends up in at least a couple of fails. Whether it’s an arduous house search, a nightmare moving day or (like one of my work colleagues) you’re being held hostage by one link in ‘the chain’, there are countless ways that things can go wrong.
Thankfully, the clever people at DFS think they’ve cracked one particular home-moving issue, and as a veteran of many a house-move disaster they asked me to give it a spin. More on that shorlty…
So, what qualifies me to talk about moving house cock-ups then? Well, I’ve had a fair few. At a rough guess, I’d say I’ve been involved in 4 or possibly 5 house moves – and that doesn’t even include university years, where we had to move house at least twice. And I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that not one of them has gone smoothly.
Here’s a run-down of some of the most common fails, many of which we’ve experienced ourselves in the Elliss household:
- The complicated ‘chain’ letting you down. Unless you’re a lucky first-time buyer, chances are there are a chain of other people whose house move is linked to your own. It only takes one link in the chain to start making unfair demands, or looking for a last-minute discount, and the whole process is thrown into chaous.
- The removal specialists from hell. Given than most of us only move house a few times in a decade, you’re unlikely to have a ‘regular’ or favourite removal company. Pick the wrong one, though, and you’ll find your house move getting unnecessarily complicated – or worse, a bunch of your stuff getting broken.
- Moving day chaos. When we moved to the house we’re currently living in, there was a 2 day gap between when we handed over the keys to our old house and when we were able to move to the new one. Then, on the day of the moving-in, the van our removal men had brought was too large to stop in our road, resulting in a last-minute cost change and a long walk for some unlucky movers.
- Confused pets. Thankfully, our cats have never seemed to phased by our last house move, but I’ve heard a number of stories of others who weren’t quite so lucky. One friend of ours had to launch a city-wide man hunt to find their dog, who had decided to walk back to their old house.
- Bad furniture or room planning. We’ve had this one a number of times. We’ve left wardrobes in old houses because they didn’t fit in the new one, we’ve found out that our sofas didn’t fit in the spaces we’d hoped they would and we’ve even had things accidentally left behind because we forgot them in the moving chaos
Whilst you can’t avoid most of those issues, the folks at DFS think they’ve come up with a solution to the last one on my list: namely, finding out your brand new furniture doesn’t fit in your new home. The DFS Room Planner (available on phones, tablets and your desktop) allows you to browse their entire collection of furniture before you buy, placing it inside a 3D model of your living room to check how well it fits.
As you can see from my virtual living room, I’m not going to win any awards for room design, but I can be safe in the knowledge that I could fit a second arm chair in my lounge without taking up too much precious floor space!
Obviously it can’t help you find a decent removal company, and unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have a “stop my pets running away” feature (yet!) but it will certainly take one big stress away from your next house move – so take it for a spin today!
DISCLAIMER: This post is brought to you by DFS. Visit their website to find out more about their great range of DFS Sofas