In my previous article “My 5 Favourites From 2018” I have subtly announced one major change that is waiting for me in this beautiful year. After living in my hometown Utrecht for almost twenty-five years and being an expat in Hong Kong for 2 years, another move is waiting for me. I have been longing and preparing for this move for a very long time. Settling down in the capital of my home country, Amsterdam, has been my long-standing wish. At this moment in my life, this is the best thing to do. Having been through the emotional roller coaster of house hunting, I am thrilled about Amsterdam becoming my new home next week. While signing the buying agreement feels like there is finally an end in sight, the whole process of moving actually begins. So I did everything to actually get control of this. For those of us who are or will be in the process of moving houses, whether you rent or buy a home, these tips will definitely help you out.

Plan another visit to your future home
After you have signed the contract and fulfilled all conditions, it is always good to plan another viewing of your home to be with the current owners or residents. Not only to get yourself more familiarised with your future home but also to measure the different areas of the house. By doing the latter I came to know for example, how long & wide the curtains could be and what size of the sofa was right for the living room. This way, I could already pick and order them, taking into account the long delivery period. Last but not least this was also my chance to get all my remaining questions about the house answered.

Explore the neighbourhood
Where can you find the supermarkets and what kind of shops & shopping malls are there in the surroundings? How is the carbage collection arranged? What are the neighbours like? Introduce yourself to them and have a chat. Come to know the neighourbood better and find out what you can expect of living there. In addition, obtain more information from the municipality in which you are going to live in.

Create a list of things to sort out and arrange
There is much more to preparing for the move than you can imagine. So to ensure you cover as many things in the preparations as possible, the best thing to do is to create a list of things that you need to arrange. Trust me, the least you want is to have unpleasant surprises waiting for you. What I found handy is to divide the tasks in the following categories: things to arrange in the house itself and things to arrange related to the move. Buying furniture, arranging connections to services like electricity & water are examples of the former. The latter includes things such as notifying relevant people & institutions of your change of address and hiring a moving truck.

Get involved in your community
Is there a community center in which periodic meetings are held to give updates and news about the neighbourhood? Also, I see more often that there are WhatsApp and Facebook groups consisting of neighbours living in the same street or flat. They share a lot with each other here. Questions that you might have, including the ones about block maintenance activities, can also be asked here.

Choose the interior design style
Choosing the perfect furniture and most importantly, trying to combine them into one integrated piece is more challenging than you think. So it is important that you get the first step right: deciding on your interior design style. This gives you direction in finding furniture and interior pieces according to one consistent pattern. You then know where you should focus on and it narrows down your choices to an acceptable range. Flip through catalogs, read interior blogs & magazines, visit home furnishings centres and ask yourself what atmosphere you want to create in your home and what style makes you feel most comfortable at home? Once you know this, transforming your home into one integrated masterpiece suddenly becomes a piece of cake.

Do you have any other moving tips that you want to share with me? Please let me know in the comments below. Have a fun and stress-free time moving, remember that it is all worth it.

Until next time!

Love always,

Mee-Ling