Setting up your new home in that first week is the part of moving nobody plans for, and after years on the trucks it is the part we watch people get wrong most often. Everyone plans the move day. Almost nobody plans the seven days after it, which is when the beds need making, the hot water needs checking and half the boxes are still stacked in the hallway. The honest truth is that a bit of order in week one saves you a fortnight of living out of cartons.
Here is the first-week plan we would give our own family after we have driven away.
What is in this guide
Setting up your new home: the first 24 hours
The goal on day one is not a finished house. It is a house you can sleep, wash and eat in. Chase that and nothing else.
Open the essentials box before anything else
If you packed a properly labelled essentials box, day one is easy. It should hold bed linen, towels, toilet paper, hand soap, phone chargers, a kettle, mugs, tea and coffee, a couple of plates, cutlery, basic tools, scissors or a box cutter, medications, and a torch. We tell every customer to load that box last so it comes off the truck first. If you missed it, do a quick raid of the cartons marked bedroom and kitchen and pull those items out before you do anything else.
Make the beds before you unpack a single other box
This sounds trivial. It is not. By 8pm on moving day you will be flat, and the difference between a decent night and a miserable one is whether the beds are made. Do it while you still have energy in the tank. Kids and pets settle faster too when their own bed and their own blanket are already set up in the right room.
Check the utilities are actually connected
Run the hot water tap for a minute. Flick the lights in every room. Check the fridge is running and cold before you load it, and remember a fridge that has been moved upright can go straight back on, while one that was laid down needs a few hours standing before you power it up. Test the gas cooktop, the internet connection, and the smoke alarms. Faults are much easier to get fixed on day one, when the agent or previous owner is still expecting your call, than three weeks later.
Do a walk-through with your phone
Photograph every room, every mark on the wall, the carpets, the oven, the window tracks and the meter readings. Ten minutes of photos on day one is the cheapest bond insurance there is, and it settles arguments at the other end of a lease before they start. Take the meter numbers too so your first bill starts from a figure you can prove.
Days two and three: the boring jobs that save you money
This is the stretch most people skip because the house still looks like a warehouse. Do these anyway.
Finish the address changes you did not get to
Most people update the obvious ones and forget the rest. Work through your bank, super fund, insurers, Medicare, the electoral roll, your driver licence, your employer, the vet, the school, and any subscription that posts you something physical. A mail redirection is a cheap safety net while you work through the list, and you can set one up through Australia Post mail redirection. Enrolment details are updated separately through the Australian Electoral Commission.
Get your bearings in the neighbourhood
Find the nearest 24-hour chemist, the bin night, the closest supermarket that is open late, and where the visitor parking is. Bin night in particular catches new arrivals out for a month. Walk the block once. It does more for feeling settled than another two hours of unpacking.
Sort the money side while it is fresh
Log the actual costs of the move now, not in six months. Removalist fee, cleaning, connection fees, new blinds, whatever it was. The government money guide MoneySmart on managing moving house costs is a straight, no-sales-pitch breakdown of what a move really costs, and it is worth a read while the numbers are still in front of you. If you are still comparing quotes for a future move, our Wollongong removalist cost guide lays out how hourly rates actually work.
Days four to seven: making it feel like home
Unpack room by room, not box by box
The single most common mistake we see is people opening whatever box is closest. You end up with six half-empty rooms and no finished ones. Pick a room, finish it completely, break down the empty cartons, and move on. Kitchen first, then bedrooms, then bathroom, then living areas, then the garage and the shed last. A finished kitchen by day four changes how the whole house feels because you stop eating takeaway.
Deal with the leftovers honestly
By day six there will be a pile of things with no home: the spare dining chairs, the exercise bike, the boxes of paperwork. Be honest about it now. If it did not have a spot in the plan, it is not going to grow one. Sell it, donate it, or put it into furniture storage in Wollongong properly rather than letting it colonise the garage for two years. Our guide on what to do before you move covers the decluttering step that saves you this pile next time.
Flatten and get rid of the cartons
Empty boxes eat more space than full ones because you stop stacking them neatly. Break them down as you empty each room. Keep six or eight good ones flat in the garage for the next move and recycle the rest. If you are the sort who moves every couple of years, keeping a stack is genuinely worth it.
What we tell our own family about setting up your new home
From our side of the truck, the people who settle in fastest are always the ones who packed properly, not the ones who unpacked fastest. That is the honest truth. If everything is boxed and the boxes are labelled with the room they are going to, we put them where they belong and your first week is just opening lids. If half the house comes out as loose armfuls of odds and ends, we are stacking it wherever it fits and you are hunting for the kettle at 9pm.
Two things we tell everyone. First, label every box with the room it is going into and whether it is a week-one box or a someday box. Someday boxes go straight to the garage or into storage and you never open them in the first week. Week-one boxes get stacked in the room they belong to. Second, box everything, even the awkward stuff. Loose items cost you time on the truck, they cost you money because time is what you are paying for, and they are what gets damaged. We would rather overestimate what you need and hand back a couple of empty cartons than watch a family carry a laundry basket of loose kitchen gear out to the car.
And if something is heavy, awkward or valuable, do not be a hero on day five. That is what we are for.
The first-week checklist at a glance
- Day 1: essentials box open, beds made, hot water and power tested, fridge running, walk-through photos and meter readings taken.
- Day 2: address changes finished, mail redirect active, internet working, smoke alarms tested.
- Day 3: kitchen fully unpacked, bin night confirmed, nearest chemist and late supermarket found, moving costs logged.
- Day 4: bedrooms and wardrobes finished, cartons from those rooms flattened.
- Day 5: bathroom and laundry set up, any faults reported to the agent or owner in writing.
- Day 6: living areas done, leftovers sorted into sell, donate or store.
- Day 7: garage and shed, remaining cartons recycled, keys and spare keys sorted, new locks booked if you bought.
Frequently asked questions
How long should setting up your new home actually take?
A three-bedroom house that was packed and labelled properly is usually liveable within 48 hours and largely finished inside a week. If the packing was rushed, expect two to three weeks. The packing decides the timeline far more than the unpacking does, which is why our packing services in Wollongong pay for themselves for a lot of families.
What should be in a moving day essentials box?
Bed linen, towels, toilet paper, soap, phone chargers, a kettle and mugs, tea and coffee, basic cutlery and plates, medications, a torch, scissors and a small toolkit for reassembling beds. Load it last so it comes off first. There is more detail on getting the packing order right in our guide on how to pack for a move.
Do I need to be home while the removalists unload?
Yes, and it makes your week easier if you are. Somebody needs to tell us which room each box and each piece of furniture goes into. Five seconds of direction at the door saves you dragging a wardrobe down the hall on day three. If you are booking a house removal with us, have a rough room plan in your head before we arrive.
When can I plug the fridge back in after moving?
If it travelled upright, you can switch it on straight away, though give it a few hours to get down to temperature before you fill it. If it was laid on its side at any point, leave it standing upright for at least four hours first so the oil settles back into the compressor. We go through this properly in our fridge removalists guide.
Need a hand with the move itself?
A good first week starts with a move that was done properly. If you are moving in Wollongong or anywhere across the Illawarra and you want a crew that packs it right, loads it right and puts it in the room it belongs in, give us a call on 1300 015 050 or send through the form below and we will give you an honest quote, not a lowball one.
