What Should You Unpack First?

Unpacking is much more efficient when you begin with the essentials and have a system in place. It’s too easy to become distracted without a plan, so a small investment of your time to create one will pay off well. 

You’ve packed up your home, loaded the truck, and arrived safely at your new home. What’s next? 

After unloading the truck, the hardest part of moving is over. But you still need to unpack everything. That can be daunting, especially when you are tired from all the physical work. Where do you begin? 

Begin By Unpacking the Essentials 

Hopefully, you packed up your essentials and kept them separate in boxes that are accessible for your first night in your new home. These should contain everything you’ll need like toiletries, linens, utensils, and such. You want to unpack this first.  

Unpack Personal Items Early On  

While pictures and other decorations might not be essentials, they can go a long way towards making your space feel like home. You don’t have to unpack these items right away, but you should unpack them early on in the process in order to give yourself a sense of ownership over your space while you’re unpacking. 

Use A System 

If you don’t create a system, you will find it easy to get distracted every time you remember some other “to-do.” It’s too easy to forget whatever you were working on when you remembered it. Decide in advance which rooms you want to unpack first. Then methodically go room by room. In general, you want to set up the beds first, so you aren’t scrambling at bedtime. 

Then unpack the kitchen and bathrooms. Follow that by unpacking clothes and other bedroom items. Once those key areas are done, you can break from the system and be a little more free-wheeling.  

Moving the Furniture 

Because furniture is large and requires multiple helping hands to get into place, you’ll want to determine where it’s going to go before you move it. This helps you avoid moving large, heavy pieces multiple times. Hopefully, you got a floorplan of your new place before you moved and decided ahead of time where everything would go. If not, do that right away before you start arranging the furniture, so you don’t have to spend any more time lifting and carrying heavy things than you absolutely have to. 

Any furniture that needs to be assembled can wait until the rest of the furniture is in place, but again, make sure you know where it’s going to go before you start assembling it so you won’t have to carry it far. 

Utility Areas Go Last 

Finally, any utility areas, such as the garage and basement, go last. Most of the items that go in those places aren’t used every day, so those can wait to be unpacked until after everything else has been put away. 

Final Thoughts 

As with all the other rooms, it’s best to organize everything and plan out where everything will go before you start unpacking. This will make the process much easier and go significantly faster. Any tools you need to keep your home functional should be unpacked first since you never know when something could go wrong. Items for the lawn, patio, and/or porch can all be unpacked last. One exception to this would be if you’re moving in summer, in which case you might want to get the grill set up first so you can still have homemade meals while you’re unpacking all the kitchen appliances and utensils. 

The easiest approach is to contact Alliance Relocation Services and let us help you pack and unpack. We will give you a free quote. Then you will see how cost-effective we are. Save your back, and let us help.