Setting Up Your New Home

Hello and welcome I am Bonnie, and I am Lily, and this is Little Home Organised, the PodCast dedicated to helping you declutter, get organized, and reclaim time for the things you love.
LILY: Maybe in a year’s time we like, totally given up all of our values, like please pay us.
I think if I had 10 kids, I would probably be bedridden with how tired I would be

BONNIE: Yeah, that wasn’t the reason though, you just wanted the TV for yourself

LILY: Oh, come on, man, if, in doubt, you find something in your house and oh Bonnie has donated it.

MUSIC

BONNIE: Hello and welcome. This week we are talking about setting up your new home; we will chat about why moving house is so stressful, common mistakes we make when unpacking, and give you some practical tips to help turn your new house into a home.

LILY: And if you are wanting to get your home and life organized and you need a helping hand, check out the Essentials Guide, it was created by the team at Little Miss Organised, Bonnie’s professional organizing company here in Brisbane, so it has the input of amazing professional organizers, the Essentials Guide is the only guide you will need to help you organize your home from head to toe, so if that sounds like something you want to check out. Head to our website littlehomeorganised.com.au.

BONNIE: Okay, so before we get started, let’s chat a little bit about why moving house is so stressful.

LILY: You know I definitely have the answer to this question. You are so tired from the whole process. It is just, there is so much, so many logistics involved like legally, practically, emotionally, mentally, all of it and then you get there and it all just kind of goes ohhhhh, when you arrive and even though you are still surrounded by like boxes and everything you just kind of like, well we are here, we can get to this later.
BONNIE: Yeah, so it is a little bit of a delayed decision

LILY: Delayed unpacking, it is like we will get out the essentials, we will just put that in the spare room, we will find a good spot of it later and before you know it you have created this ongoing saga where like 5 years ago you moved into your house, and you still haven’t fully unpacked.

BONNIE: The amount of clients we have who have still got a box 7 years later, 3 moves later that they have never actually unpacked and looked at since that first move is incredible. I mean we all tend to have it, don’t we, like we have got a cuckoo clock that we bought in Germany, my husband and I on our first trip or second trip 2011 or 2013 something like that and it’s never gone with our décor, and so we have never actually unpacked it and set it up.

LILY: This sounds like a clutter confession

BONNIE: It is a bit of a clutter confession, but we designed it ourselves, so we went into the Black Forest in Germany

LILY: That is very sentimental.

BONNIE: Yes, and we picked what was going to go on it, and you know all these cute little woodland animals and stuff, and we actually really want to set it up, and so we hopefully will set it up here or at the next house depending on when that might be, but our kids are like, Mum, Dad when are we going to get the cuckoo clock out, like they know the story, they have heard about it, and I remember as a kid, I think it was Oma and Opa that had a grandfather clock or a cuckoo clock

LILY: Yes

BONNIE: And I just loved the noise that it made, so I want that for my kids as well, even though it will probably drive me absolutely bananas.

LILY: I am now wondering if maybe it was grandma and grandpa

BONNIE: I don’t know. I have a feeling it was Oma and Opa. I do remember they did have like this really cute little Dutch weather station, where if the weather was raining, I think it was a man would come out with a little umbrella and a yellow raincoat.
LILY: I do not remember that, but that sounds amazing.

BONNIE: It was so awesome, and then if it was sunny there was like a lady that would come out with you know with a hat, and she was very bright and sunshiny, and stuff and I loved that thing, like

LILY: That is so cool.

BONNIE: Yeah, I am not a knick knacky person, but like I remember looking at that every time we went to their house

LILY: You are starting to sound pretty pro knick knacky

BONNIE: I am a little bit, this cuckoo clock this weather house

LILY: But back to moving house because it can get really stressful and I think for anybody who has moved house, I mean you have just on it, I have moved internationally, and that was with a small amount of stuff, that wasn’t even with like a whole 4 bedroom house, you know

BONNIE: And no kids

LILY: Yeah so

BONNIE: Are you planning on having 10 children?

LILY: I don’t know that anyone’s body can really handle that

BONNIE: Well, people do it, but I mean you really kind of have to plan ahead for that because otherwise, you are looking at the next 15 years of

LILY: I am tired now, and I have one

BONNIE: Pregnancy and birthing so

LILY: I think if I had 10 kids, I would probably be bedridden with how tired I was.

BONNIE: Those people are so resilient; they are amazing

LILY: I know, when you see those huge family photos and like they have basically been perpetually pushing out babies, and you are like, how do you do it? They must just have some kind of gumption that you know I just definitely do not.

BONNIE: Do you know what is really interesting? Since moving to the Sunshine Coast, it is far more common for a big family up here, so in Brisbane, when we would say, oh yeah, we are having our 4th, people would be like, oh wow, like you guys are crazy and stuff, up here I have met so many people that have got 5, 6, 7+ kids and it is like 4 is normal up here, it is really interesting.

LILY: That is so interesting how just by location it can change what feels like a cultural norm

BONNIE: Yeah, maybe it is because people up here are more relaxed and have less of the crazy city life; I don’t know

LILY: It is true; oh yeah, let’s pop out another one.

BONNIE: Yeah

LILY: So what are some of the common mistakes you think contribute to the stress of moving house.

BONNIE: I think the biggest one is that overwhelm, and then I will deal with this later, and like we have been guilty of this when we have moved house

LILY: I mean, literally, we are recording right now and looking around at your office going, mmm overwhelming.

BONNIE: Yeah, yeah, and the funny thing is, it is like temporary, and I know what needs to happen with this stuff

LILY: Of course you are Little Miss Organised.

BONNIE: Yeah, and I know that within 6 or 8 weeks

LILY: I mean, let’s be real, Little Miss Organised

BONNIE: Any who, I know that within 6 or 8 weeks this will look a whole lot better but I am choosing to ignore some of the stuff because it is not a priority and right now you know keeping everybody alive and at the end of the day we are all here safe and sound, that is kind of the survival instinct at the moment but one thing we have done, we have done a few moves right, we have done a move from Brisbane to Townsville and back again, we done 2 or 3 moves around like local areas of Brisbane and then we have done this move to the Sunshine Coast, so we have moved a few times and the one thing that I find that we still repeatedly do is or we can do it, you know we overestimate our ability and what we can actually achieve and it is not even that we are very frugal or we are trying to save a dollar or something like that, it is more like oh we can prove to whoever which nobody has ever said to us, like oh you can’t do it you need to get movers in, but we have this like innate sense where we are like oh yeah we can do it.

LILY: Self-sufficiency

BONNIE: Yeah, that must be it, and we are like yeah, we don’t need that much help, and so like for this Sunshine Coast move, we just hired a truck, but we did like 4 or 5 weekends, and so we did probably like 6 trips all up of stuff to bring up the coast just in our cars as well as the truck and you know it was all kind of dribs and drabs and stuff but in hindsight why didn’t we just get movers to come and help pack and unload and unpack you know the next day or the same day

LILY: Yeah, and that’s one of those things when it comes to the stress of moving house if you are biting off more than you can chew like you are capable of doing it, but if you take everything on your own plate, it is going to make the situation more stressful than potentially it needed to be.

BONNIE: Yeah, and I think of a friend of ours whose family moved recently too, and they had been living in their house for 20-30 years, and money was no object for them, but because they were only moving 10 minutes away, they decided no we are not going to get removalist in we are going to do it all ourselves and they had a trailer and my friend said I think we did like 40 trips and he goes at the end of it, we were all just why

LILY: Why did we do that

BONNIE: Why did we do that to ourselves like why did we not just get removalists to help out and make it quick and easy rather than doing these 40 trips of trailer loads and I thought, yeah, you are right like we often do that, we overestimate our ability and our you know the time that we have, and then we regret it later.

LILY: So there are all these things that contribute to the stress of moving house, and that is one of them. Another one is, as you were saying the I will deal with it later, but another common mistake that is like the classic is not labeling everything properly, so when you get to the other end, if you haven’t labeled things properly, you don’t exactly know where everything is, and you end up with this big chaotic mess at the other end.

BONNIE: Yeah yeah, and I think it is the taking shortcuts that can really bite you in the bottom later
LILY: Oh, we will just do it this way. It is like that with clutter, I am just going to put this down, and I will get to it later.

BONNIE: Yeah

LILY: And 6 months later, you haven’t got to it, or it has become a homeless item that is shuffled from bench to bench to bench around your house

BONNIE: Or there’s been more things that have been put on it in the meantime, and you can’t even remember where that item was. During our move, we actually lost a kettle.

LILY: And you still haven’t found it

BONNIE: No, and I think upon reflection we said, oh we must have actually donated it because it was

LILY: If in doubt, Bonnie donated it.

BONNIE: Yeah, that is highly likely

LILY: That is a mantra that all of you out there need to live by; if in doubt if you can’t find something in your house, be oh like Bonnie has donated it

BONNIE: Although I have to admit when our mother and we were living with our parents until recently

LILY: OH yeah

BONNIE: When she, like that was her first port of call

LILY: Oh, Bonnie has donated it

BONNIE: Oh, I can’t find this spatula; Bonnie donated it. Like this is your house, it is not my house. I do not donate things without your knowledge or consent.

LILY: What you didn’t know is that secretly at night, I would drive over, break into her house, donate things and then let you get the blame.

BONNIE: That makes way more sense

LILY: Yeah, right, the donation fairy.

BONNIE: Yeah, there was a thing that went around on Facebook a few years ago where people were talking about how they took clutter that they didn’t want out of their own houses, and they went and hid it

LILY: Oh yeah

BONNIE: Their friends’ houses

LILY: I loved it
BONNIE: who were really cluttered

LILY: To see if they would notice

BONNIE: To see if they noticed and they never did and this was such a controversial topic because some people were like that hilarious, that is so awesome, and then other people were horrified

LILY: They were like how rude

BONNIE: How could you do that to your friends but yeah, it is like in reverse

LILY: Yeah, I think that is so funny, and we should probably like do a challenge like that

BONNIE: Oh yeah, what can you take from your house and hide at your friends or families house

LILY: Before you get ready to donate and see how long it takes them to notice.

BONNIE: I love that, that is a great idea

LILY: Challenge accepted.

BONNIE: Yeah, let’s do that in the Facebook group

LILY: Yes, yes, let’s do it. Another common mistake is people, of course dumping boxes and furniture like wherever, I if you don’t have a clear plan when you get to the other end of where things are going to go, like it makes sense on the day that things are like overwhelming oh removalists just put that there, just put that there but it is important to have a clear plan because you don’t want to be double handling things, moving boxes from room to room to room or furniture which is heavy, once like, especially if you can’t lift this stuff and the removalist pops it down, and you are like oh I guess that lives there now.

BONNIE: Yeah, and I mean if you have got a pool table or piano or like a really heavy bed base or something.

LILY: Yeah, my husbands’ parents moved at Christmas last year, and they had a piano; no, they didn’t have a piano; I decluttered the piano

BONNIE: Yeah

LILY: The fairy strikes again

BONNIE: That’s awesome

LILY: No, actually, that was a cool story, total sidetrack. I ended up donating that to a bridal venue on the Gold Coast.

BONNIE: Oh yeah

LILY: And they did it up, and it became like a part of where, like the bride and groom get photos, this old piano and yeah they made it really beautiful, so it got a really lovely second life because it didn’t work anymore, but no they had, my in-laws have a really heavy like the slate pool tables, you know they are really really heavy and something like that it was like ohh I can’t remember maybe it was like 6 guys were lifting it and they were all like ohhhh, if you have got something like that you need to know where it is going

BONNIE: Yeah

LILY: Because once it is down, it is down.

BONNIE: Yeah, that is crazy; that is something that happened here too, stuff got dropped off in the garage and not really placed according to the right room or whatnot, and then there was me a couple of weeks later when my husband was at work, and I was on holidays with my 3 children trying to up pack the house, rearranging the garage so that all the boxes were in the kitchen were all together and that sort of thing and he came home, and he was like what have you done, and I am like I had to, it was annoying me, and he was like your pregnant, you should not be shifting that stuff, and I was like I did it safely

LILY: He will never know; he wasn’t there.

BONNIE: That’s right, no I am very cautious when I do move stuff around because I obviously don’t want to take myself out of the equation; that would be really difficult on everyone involved

LILY: Yes, that is very true

BONNIE: Yeah, but the need was there

LILY: So another common mistake is if you decide to go through and unpack all rooms at once, so if you just go in and just like, it is like anything, like with decluttering if you go in with an all mentality and it can be too big overwhelming, life gets in the way, and then suddenly you have made a bigger mess rather than just focusing on one small area and getting it done properly.

BONNIE: Yeah, it’s Having that laze of focus rather than multitasking.

LILY: Of course, it would be nice to be able to get every room unpacked, but it is a better strategy to kind of go through and do like a room at a time.

BONNIE: Yeah, yeah

LILY: Starting with things like the kitchen

BONNIE: Yes, exactly so having your priorities in place, so you need to be able to sleep, first of all, you need to be able to clean yourself, and you need to be able to feed yourself, so those are the kind of 3 functions that the house needs to be able to do, if you are like my husband, the priority is getting the TV set up so that he can watch TV at the end of the day but,

LILY: After a big day of moving or to put the children in front of, so you can keep unpacking. TV education that is how it is done

BONNIE: That wasn’t the reason, though; he just wanted the TV for himself

LILY: Oh come on, man, I have got to whisper that one too and be like that’s why you did it, you just have to say that’s why.

BONNIE: That’s right, that’s right

LILY: Strategic

BONNIE: Yup yup, you will just have to do it subliminally while he is asleep or something
LILY: Or when I am doing my donation fairy stuff at night, I will just come up to his bed and just whisper whisper

BONNIE: Yeah, that’s cool

LILY: Oh, have seen like people doing those videos where they go up and pick up their partners’ phone and like whisper into it because you know how Siri is like actually listening to everything even though Apple says Siri isn’t, so they like pick up their partners’ phone and be like, spa day, spa day, massage, like when it is close to mothers day so that their partner starts getting ads on Facebook and to get ideas have you seen those videos

BONNIE: No, I haven’t. Does Siri actually listen all the time

LILY: Oh, I mean, apple says no but have you not said something and then gotten an ad for something and being like I have never searched that.

BONNIE: I have had that before

LILY: Yeah, so they can say no all they like, but I just don’t know how I feel about it, but what I will do is I will come into your bedroom, and I will whisper whisper in his ear, and then he will get up the next day and will be like I just had this crazy idea and he won’t know where it came from.

BONNIE: You know that would explain my sons missing library book because last night before I went to bed I knew where it was and this morning when we were getting ready for school he was frantically racing around, could not find his library book for the life of him, of course, I had said to him last night, put it in your school bag ready for tomorrow and did he, no

LILY: Oh, where was it

BONNIE: Well, I don’t know, we haven’t found it.

LILY: Ohhhh

BONNIE: It will be there somewhere, but it is probably the 3-year-old.

LILY: Oh, that’s right; if in doubt, blame the 3-year-old. So another common mistake is not allowing enough time for the whole process.

BONNIE: Woopsie

LILY: You know some people don’t have a choice. You know it is like we are out at this deadline, inn on this deadline, I have got work, kids have commitments it is what it is. Preparing ahead as much as possible is important. On TikTok, on our account, we have gotten quite a number of questions and requests from people asking about how to prepare for a move.

BONNIE: Oh yeah.

LILY: Like we have an episode on this, you definitely should go check it out but planning for this ahead of time is really important, and making sure that you have enough time to do it is important as well.

BONNIE: Yeah, it is about having that buffer time. I really think making sure that when you have booked in the move, giving yourself a few extra days just in case, because things never go according to plan it is like your wedding day, there is always something that is going to go awry, and there is the whole Hofstadter’s law which means basically means even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law things always take longer than you plan for them to and I am living proof of that, pretty much every day.

LILY: The proof is in the pudding, people. Alright, after the break, we are going to talk about practical tips for setting up your new home.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL……

BONNIE: Okay, so we are talking about how to set up your new house or home, and next we are going to talk about some practical tips

LILY: But before we do that, Bonnie and I have some exciting news, we actually have arranged some freebies for everybody,

BONNIE: Yeah, freebees

LILY: And they are super simple, non-committal, and you can use them as you need them. So basically, Bonnie and I are doing our best to keep these PodCasts ad-free. It is really important to use, but we also know we need to be able to keep the Podcast going. One of the ways that we can keep it going is you guys going rating and reviewing us, checking us out on socials, all that kind of stuff, really simple really helps us, but another thing that we have arranged is actually going to be really beneficial to you guys is when we come across a product that we like, love support and think will be really practical for you we are going to start creating basically some arrangements with these companies, especially small businesses and creating a discount code for you guys where you can go and shop with them and get a discount purely because you are listener of the Podcast which is really exciting. So there will be a webpage on our website coming up soon, we currently have a discount code for second scout labels, and they do the beautiful adhesive labels, really great for all children but especially neurodiverse children, and there is a discount code for them I believe it is Littlehome10, but also we have a new company that is one board that we think you guys will really like.

BONNIE: Yeah, so if you struggle with paperwork and knowing how to shred or where to shred and maybe you don’t like the fact that your shredder takes 10 minutes to cool down after doing 3 pagers, there is this amazing company where you can basically just stick all of your shredding into a bag and post it off, and they will destroy it confidentially for you, and they are called Bag & Shred,

LILY: Yep, it is like Australia wide and basically what they will do is you order some special bags, and they just look like a normal postage bag, like from the post office, they send them to you, you fill them with your confidential documents that you don’t just in the normal bin when you are decluttering. You seal it up, and you just send it back to them, and they shred it for you, so it is a pretty cool company. Our discount code for them is Little10 to get 10% off but if you find companies out there that you really like and think their products are awesome and you want to let us know about them, just send us a DM because if we believe it, we are going to share it, we are not going to be talking to you guys about random you know pet food products.

BONNIE: Or toothbrushes

LILY: Or toothbrushes or men’s shaving

BONNIE: Or banks

LILY: Yeah or banks or anything, you know maybe in a year’s time we have totally given up all our values, like please pay us. But we are really working hard to make sure the products we talk about are actually products that we believe in, and these are products we think will be genuinely beneficial for you. So make sure to check those out; there will be links on our socials as well.

BONNIE: Yeah, and thanks for supporting us by listening and by sharing it with your friends and family; it really does mean a lot to us

LILY: It does

BONNIE: So thank you. Okay, so we are talking, some practical tips for setting up your new home. Now a few months ago, actually not even that long ago, we got approached by a company to do some unpacking for one of their corporate clients, so what this company does it they facilitate international moves, and they generally do moves from America to Australia, and it is all for corporates, and what they actually do, it is so amazing, and I was like oh that is what I am doing next time I move, is they will do all of the pack up, they will obviously all the moving and then they unpack on the other end, and they get professional organizers in to organize and set up your new home, like a team of them.

LILY: Yes, please

BONNIE: And it is done in like a day or two

LILY: Sign me up
BONNIE: And I thought yeah, that is amazing because whenever we set up a home for a client, yeah, there will be a little team of us, but we generally do it

LILY: You’re setting it up logically with the most organized systems, but they may not necessarily have the vision for.

BONNIE: Yeah, and normally when we unpack for a client, they are there, right, so they can say, oh no, I prefer that over here and over there, but for this company, the client hasn’t even arrived in Australia yet

LILY: That is kind of exciting. You would have had so much freedom

BONNIE: You like just get to your house, and everything is there, and it is set up like to the point where there is toilet paper and your consumables, and there is food in the pantry, and I was just thinking

LILY: Isn’t that magical

BONNIE: That is magical; it really really is. I can think of one client in particular where we were able to do a similar sort of thing because she was older and she was just moving from like one sort of level of care in a retirement village to a higher level of care and because we actually outsourced and this is tip no one, is outsource where you can, so if you can outsource the pack or the unpack, the removals all that sort of stuff that is a really simple strategy for helping you to set up a new house but we also got like a hanging company involved so they come in, and they do the picture hanging and all your mirrors, and all that sort of stuff and they are like Cinderella you know not even Cinderella, Mary Poppins even, like they literally just you know stand there measure it, get it up, like they know the right you know tools.

LILY: Weights for things

BONNIE: All of that sort of stuff

LILY: That is really cool

BONNIE: Anytime I had asked my husband or even our dad when I was younger to hang pictures and stuff, it is like it is a process right and they get it right, and it is great at the end and all that sort of stuff

LILY: But these people are efficient

BONNIE: These people are amazingly quick, and they just get it done and dusted, and you know that is the biggest thing that actually starts making your new house feel like a home, is when you have got stuff on the walls.

LILY: It does have that like special homey feel to it

BONNIE: Yeah, which, as you can see behind us, I don’t have right now.

LILY: Normally, there would be exhibit A, a painting, but now it is exhibit B, a blank wall.

BONNIE: Yeah

LILY: So a practical tip for you guys is when you do this house move know where things are going to go ahead of time. Not only does it mean that you are not double handling heavy furniture and things like that but it sets things up practically from the start and we talk about this with decluttering that having a plan is so important, it is important for every aspect of life but you need to have a plan, you need to know where things are going to go in the kitchen because otherwise especially if people are helping you, things will kind of get shoved willy nilly and that actually happened a little bit with my in-laws move, my mother in law had a lot of friends that came and helped which was great but it also meant that a lot of things ended up getting put in the draws straight away that she then had to kind of move things around later on so it was helpful but you know that is one thing that we never even discussed or thought about it was kind of like we can’t have everything on the bench, we need to put things in cupboards but if don’t have a plan maybe we end up having to move things that are in the cupboards or maybe life happens and it is too quick and we can’t even get back to those cupboards and then before you know it.

BONNIE: Yeah, and that’s why I think having like a professional organizer or a team help you with your move can be so helpful because then you have got like that one person who basically says okay no, this is the plan and you, you, you are going to do this section, you are going to do this section, and there is kind of like one leader and that really helps with setting up a new space from scratch

LILY: So they are kind of the core things that are going to help you with your house move, and I know that they sound very simple, but they are really important, like having a plan, getting extra help where possible, and just being really clear about what you want on the other side, and sometimes these moves happen so quickly, and it is such a rush to get over there that is why where possible declutter in advance.

BONNIE: Oh yeah, don’t do the whole thing. I can’t make a decision now, so I will just pack it and decide on the other end.

LILY Don’t bring anything with you that is not going to be used in your home that you are not going to use, need or love and if you have trouble making decisions, you know you can check out our decision making tree, it is something that people use to help them figure out what is going to stay and what is going to go but use those kinds of tools and do that set up in advance.

BONNIE: Oh definitely because inevitably you will actually get to the other end, and you will decide there is more stuff that you want to declutter anyway as you are unpacking, maybe it doesn’t fit, or maybe the purpose has changed, or your needs have changed, but where possible get rid of most of it before you go before you go otherwise you are paying and spending time packing it, transporting it and unpacking it on the other end just to get rid of it down there. So save yourself some time, be kind to your future self.

LILY: Of course, it is our message right, and one more thing we should mention, of course, is the free-moving guide that you can download from our website is something that can help you get prepared for your next move. So Bonnie, what is our tidy task?

BONNIE: So your tidy task this week is, if you are moving, just to follow this kind of plan, so make a little bit of a plan for your move. So it might be step one is where will my furniture go? Work out what are the rooms that are going to be the same and where things are just going to get transferred from one house to the next house but where will all the furniture go, have a bit of a plan, write it down if you need to, then second step is who is helping on the day? And say yes to more help rather than not because this is the problem that my husband tends to have where he is like nah nah we will be right once again we think we can do it all, we are biting off more than we can chew, and then we get to the actual day, and we think oh that would have been really good to have had an extra set of hands for this or whatever. So who is helping on the day, ask for more help rather than not and the third thing is what services will you get to assist, so will you get removalists, will you get people to pack, or unpack, will you have people there to mow the lawn, the first couple of days that you are there, a cleaner to help come and clean things, has the pest control being done before you move in so you don’t actually have to worry about you know pests from the previous owners or things like that, so just start to put together your moving plan with those 3 key factors in mind, and that will make your moving a lot less stressful.

LILY: And that’s it for this week’s episode, so thank you so much for tuning in and choosing to have us in your ears.

BONNIE: And remember PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION.

LILY: See you later

BONNIE: Bye

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