I'm panicking now.

I'm going to book the removal people today, already talked to AirPets about moving our cats.

Now we're having to give away a bunch of stuff; I think we need to hire a skip but my husband doesn't think so. Ha, ha, ha.

Congrats! Must be a huge relief, but I hear you on the panic, too!

We had three weeks to arrange our move much like you. In the end it all went smoothly but that didn't stop us panicking about everything.

You need the skip. I ended up making about 12 trips to the local council rubbish tip. A skip makes it a lot easier and a lot less time consuming.

Good luck with the move.

Good luck..

Hope everything works out..

Thats good news!

I didn't have a house, so I can't imagine the stress of sorting that out but I do remember packing up my room in about 2 days, there was am empty spare room next to mine - not by the time I was done with it, filled high with black bin bags!

Hey, congrats! You'll do just fine, just remember to have about a gazillion black bin liners ready for filling!

BTW -- who are you using for the move? I've been googling round the UK forum (and more widely in regular ol' Google) for suggestions.

Probably Excess Baggage; they came recommended from others here.

Congratulations! Good luck with the move.

Hmmmm...I was thinking about using them too after reading the recommendations. Can you let us know how it goes with them (if you have any time at all after the move!), especially cost?

Actually, just thinking that if you send them on the slow boat you probably won't get the boxes until after I've moved... wow. Just realised how soon we're leaving (assuming it all goes right).

Great news, congrats!!
I know whenever i moved, i was amazed by the amount of junk i had managed to accumulate

We're giving it away by the truckload and haven't even made a dent.



Sure, no prob.

Congrats, HA...how exciting!

We sold our house last year when we were both not realistic about our personal responsibilities which would prevent us from filing until this year But it worked out great because strangely enough, the new owner asked D to stay on rent free until his daughter moved in.

That was April-May of 06. Supposed to be until at most Dec. He's still there now, lol.

They have a lease with 30 day notice, and I'm sure it'll be the rush rush situation when it does happen, so let me know if you have any interesting/time saving tips when you're done.

Best of luck!

My boxes from excess baggage took 6 weeks. They quoted me ten weeks but they were here much sooner.

Edit: 14 boxes (differing sizes)=roughly 600 quid.

Wow! 14 boxes was £600? That is my proposed budget for the shipping, and I think we're gonna have a whole lot less than that. We need to go with someone who does volumetric shipping as opposed to by weight, as we are shipping some very heavy vintage hi-fi (guess whose stuff that is?). My stuff is just a bunch of clothes and CDs -- I junked about half my stuff when I split from my ex, and I insisted he kept all the furniture. Very prescient on my part!

Awesome news! I agree with definitely hiring a skip. Just moving myself and friends out of apartments or 2 bedroom houses there's always a ton of stuff to throw out so I can only imagine what a bigger house would entail. I hope all the packing and shipping goes well

Andy chose Allied-Pickford for his shipping. They picked up everything on May 1st and they're slated to deliver June 15th. So I can't say yet whether they deliver on time, but they were very fairly priced and took great care packing everything up [Andy had brought it all down two flights of stairs into the front room since they would have charged extra if they had to climb stairs but I think most all are like that].

Actually, there are quite a few who will "sell" you part of a shipping container and you can fill it with whatever you want. Unfortunately, I don't have any names to give you there. Perhaps someone else here can help?

excessbaggage have a weight limit per box of 32kgs, if it is any more than that they won't take it. The 2 foot boxes are designed for heavy books etc. The idea being that if you fill that box with heavy books it won't be over 32kgs, the 3 foot boxes are for CDs etc. Again, they've worked it out that a box that size full of CDs won't go over 32kgs...and so on.

The tea crate sizes they offer are for soft furnishings, bedding, soft toys, stuff like that.

Boxes are "free" and come with plenty of bubble wrap. Good service for me too, but I was within the M25. Outside the M25 I think you can't do the "next day pick up/drop off service". Overall I was VERY impressed with them.

Delivery at the USA end was faultless. They emailed me when the ship arrived, emailed me when it was through Customs and then phoned me to arrange a delivery time. The delivery drivers phoned me on the day to let me know what time they would be with me.

All good!

Congratulations.....won't be long before your home

Mags -- thanks SO much for all this! Really thorough and has sealed the deal with us -- Excess Baggage, here we come! Luckily, the heaviest single item of hi-fi is only (ha!) 22kgs so it'll be fine. I think it's slightly too long to fit into a tea chest but I assume they might allow us to use our own boxes if they're stong (i.e. sealed properly, double-walled construction).

We're also looking into how much a whole container might be -- we were going to ship the cars separately but it might be worth it just to bung it all in at one go. The cars are stored by a specialist vintage car garage which also regularly handles car export across the globe, so even if we don't get the container we're confident that the vehicles will get there.

HA -- sorry for hijacking your thread!

I should add that I've left two messages in two days at Excess Baggage and have not received a call back.

Not at all CHUFFED.

Yikes! That is not impressive at all, especially given your tight timescale. I assume you've tried emailing them too?

Yep. I am LESS than impressed.

Really? I just phoned them up and got an answer every time...very odd.

HA, I don't know if this is the number you use, but I have 0800 652 1080 in my contacts and I never had a problem with them picking up the phone, I think their hours are around 7am to 10pm.

Congratulations on exchanging!

When I move I am going to be hiring a skip, for sure...