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For the last month I’ve been in the middle of moving from our townhouse to a new house. The move went off pretty well, only slightly above budget. For the move, we didn’t do much in the way of renovation, just floors and paint, but these have a way of cascading into more work. As I stated earlier, I’m also using the move as a way to retool my home automation strategy. I’ll post more on that soon, but here are my top ten tips on moving from my perspective.

Rule One: You Get What You Pay For

With this move, I took the stance that I was going to pay for quality. We were operating on a very tight timeline for renovations and the move, not to mention a one year old, that I wasn’t willing to go for the lowest cost options for anything, including moving trucks, hardwood, tile and painting. The cost hurt, but the fact that everyone finished on time, and to quality did not. All told I had to hire a handyman, painter, tile installer, flooring company, packers and movers and a home theater installer. The fact that they had three weeks to do their job and no overlap or buffer, and completed it on time makes me a firm believer in “you get what you pay for.”

Rule Two: Use Backpack

Moving and renovating have a lot of moving pieces, not to mention the actual   process of buying the house. To simplify our lives, I used Backpack from 37Signals to manage all aspects of the move. We had a master calendar in there with key dates, and pages for each of the subject areas: renovation, computer systems, home automation, furniture ideas. I also had a page that room by room had pictures I had taken, which greatly helped during renovation and as a visual reminder of things to get.

Rule Three: Call, Call, Call

Because we were operating on a super tight deadline between renovation and moving, as well as prepping our old place for renters, I was extremely diligent about making sure people started work when they said they would. To ensure this, I had four calls for each vendor in my calendar. Two weeks prior, one week prior, three days prior and night before. The two weeks prior was good as for one vendor, they forgot about the commitment. The one week served to make sure I had everything prepped for them (material, access, etc). Because of these calls, 100% of my vendors started and stopped right on time.

Rule Four: Plan early

We had the luxury (or not) of 60 days between escrow close and renovation start, and about 80 days between escrow close and move in. This gave me ample time to plan everything down to the minute. I started the day escrow closed, assembling up lists of things to do, starting with address changes and all the way down to specific coordination of the move itself. Because I booked everything super early, I also got very good rates on things and gave more flexibility to Amy and I. In my view, as soon as you know you have to move, start planning and working on it.

Rule Five: Pay movers

I’ve moved about six times in my life, since I turned 18. Every time save for one, I moved myself, including driving trucks, loading and unloading. The only time I didn’t was when I had the move paid for when I relocated to Los Angeles. As tempting as it was to do it all myself, since we had so much time, I made the decision to only do enough packing of things we weren’t using, but otherwise pay a mover. I used Northstar moving, and while not cheap, I got three guys for about 6 hours to pack up most of our townhouse, move it and unload it at our new house. With a one-year old baby it was essential. Nothing was damaged, and all told, even with the cost, I think it was well worth it.

Rule Six: Make it comfortable

One of the things I wanted to do was make this move as comfortable for my family as possible. The biggest issue with moving is disruption, and that applies in triplicate if you have a baby. To do so, I made sure that before we even set foot in the new house on moving day, that it was partially stocked with food, Internet was setup and most importantly, it was clean. The day before we moved in I had a cleaning crew in for five hours giving it a deep cleaning. We had taken out a lot of terra cotta tile (actually something like 1600 sq feet of it), so we had Martian red dust everywhere. The crew made sure that when we moved in, the bathrooms were cleaned, insides of cabinets, etc.

Having the Internet, DirectTV, etc turned on also made it easier for Amy and I to manage things. Also, because I had the home theater guys do their install earlier, our TV and speakers were hooked up which made the moving day a bit easier. The telling point is that Eli slept through his first night in our new home. As did Amy and I.

Rule Seven: Plan for the 10%

Everything will take 10% longer, cost 10% more and be 10% more of a headache than you anticipate. For every 100 sq feet of floor to install, count on having 10 sq feet of issues. With us, we had bad foundation, an accidental carpet removal in a closet, etc. I accommodated in my budget and my timing for this 10%, so I was not having constant anxiety attacks. The question wasn’t if we’d have problems, just what they would be.

Rule Eight: It’ll never be perfect

I read Dwell Magazine and Apartment Therapy and watch HGTV like everyone else, and through these you see homes that are perfect down to right angles at every wall. You’ll never achieve this. Give up on trying. The baseboards will have issues, paint won’t be in ruler straight lines. There will be dings in bull-nosing. The electric plates might be offset a bit. Walls wont’ be straight, etc. There is no perfect. Let it go.

Rule Nine: One thing at a time

Back to Dwell, when you move into a new house that is your “dream” house, you want it to immediately be ready for a Dwell photographer. Everything has to happen NOW, furniture, renovation, etc. It can’t. Just focus on the immediate, and start planning for the future. The consequence of not taking one thing at a time is getting overwhelmed and putting yourself into an inertia problem. There are infinite options for chairs, sofa’s, accessories. Give yourself one task, ie: I will automate my light switches this weekend, not 15. Buying a home doesn’t mean putting an expiration date on your ability to do things in it. Does it really matter if a room isn’t perfectly staged right away? No. Would you rather have patio furniture or a picture on a wall. I voted for patio furniture.

Rule Ten: Don’t forget the people (and things) moving with you

This should be self evident. I’m a planner and architect of software by trade, so my tendency is to break a big job into tasks that I can treat in a near algorithmic fashion. That’s what I do, devise systems to make the insurmountable easy to manage. I do so without emotion, which is an issue with those for whom a move is something more than just physical. Moving is a huge deal, and takes a huge toll on everyone. It’s important to not forget the people and animals moving with you. For me that included my dogs, cat and my wife and son. We had issues with the cat adjusting, the dog did fine, but both Amy and I are taking time to get used to the new surroundings.

Often its best to leave some stuff unpacked and just deal with the reality of physical displacement.

So, any other tips that would apply to moving?