Be Green When You Move to a New Home

When you’re moving home, apart from the excitement of the move itself, it can be a time of great cleansing and de-cluttering. When you pack up what’s going with you, this is the time to really decide what you don’t want to take and what you’ll do with it all.

If you’re set on buying new living room furniture to go with your new house, then what’s happening with the old stuff?  Rather than just take your existing sofa down to the tip, why not see if you can recycle it? You may have friends or relatives who will be more than willing to take it off your hands – it’ll save them paying out for a new one, after all.

Look out for any sofas sale dates and try and time buying your new furniture with the next big sale. Leave the purchase until as near as you can manage to your moving date, and get the furniture store to deliver to your new address. This frees up space in the removals van for the things you do want to take from the old home to the new one.

You can use the same tactic for white goods. The purchasers of your old house might want to take on your white goods, especially if they’re fitted.  Also, it’s unlikely that your existing white goods will all fit neatly into your new abode. Take this chance to either negotiate with the people you’re buying from to take their washing machine, dishwasher, etc. or buy new, more efficient machines. You can now get washers with much bigger capacity, and today’s new dishwashers use even less water, so these are planet-friendly gestures.

Aside from the big stuff, you can also sort through all the family wardrobes and take any unused items down to the local charity shop – again helping in the recycling process.  It’s far more efficient and nicer to get rid of anything you no longer want or need before you move into your new home than to take it with you and sort it out at a later date.