Home Improvement: Things To Do Before Moving Into A New Home

Congratulations on your new home! After several months of search and negotiations, you’ve finally bought the home of your dreams. A home and property that reflects who you are and one that your family fell in love with immediately.

Now that you have successfully survived all the strain and stress that you had to go through looking for a place for your family and yourself it’s time to have a great life in your new abode. However, there are a few things that you should consider doing before moving into a new place.

Unless it’s a brand new home that you’ve purchased or one that you’ve built according to your plans there would surely be a few changes that you’d wish to make to your new place. It could be changing the color theme or the carpets, adding a fresh coat of paint, replacing a broken pipe or fixing leakages, servicing the electronic appliances that are there or replacing a few of them.

Unless you wish to pay huge amounts as water charges or electrical charges you need to consider fixing or replacing some of the pipes, bathroom fixtures and electronic equipment like a water heater, refrigerator, or an electric oven that needs attention.

While looking for new appliances make sure you buy the energy efficient ones that have the maximum number of stars on the energy rating label. This will cut down the energy charges you pay each month. Rich Lamendola from Flotechs Plumbing (https://flotechsplumbing.com/) says that setting your water heater to the right temperature will reduce your monthly bill.

What are some of the things that you can consider doing before moving into your new home?

Install New Locks

The most important factor to consider while moving into your new home is that this place would be safe and secure for your family to live in. Can you sleep peacefully with the thought that a stranger could be moving around with the key to your main door or back door?

Keys are often given to relatives, neighbors, realtors, or workmen by the owners when there is a requirement. Not all people can be trustworthy. Hence, installing new locks or re-keying is essential before moving into a new home. This will assure you peace of mind while staying in this new place.

Painting The Walls

A fresh coat of paint could brighten up any space especially so if this place has been in use for a long time. Choose colors that work perfectly for your family and you. You could consider hiring professionals to get it done or you can choose to do it yourself. When you choose professionals to do it the project can be completed within a few days depending on the size of your home.

Getting it done before moving in can save you a lot of time, money, and energy that will be required to move your furniture and other household items. If you are unsure about the colors you can paint the entire house white or shades of off-white or select colors that would match your furniture and décor. If you don’t have the budget to paint the entire home you can choose to repaint some of the main rooms inside the home.

Upgrade Electrical Appliances

The home that you’ve purchased may have several electrical outlets but doing an upgrade would be worthwhile especially if it is an old home. You may need to install additional outlets for television, or computers and a few within the kitchen or bathrooms. Additional light fixtures like a spotlight, track light or work light and ceiling fans can be added depending on the requirements for your family. Replacing mismatched electrical outlets could also be considered. Even though this can be replaced at any time, doing it while the rooms are empty would be much easier.

Replacing old electronic appliances like a washing machine, electrical heater, oven or refrigerator with new ones that are energy efficient can help you save on energy costs. Doing electrical upgrades would also prevent serious accidents that could happen as a result of an electrical short circuit.

Servicing Mechanical Equipment

Once you’ve purchased your house make sure that you get all the mechanical devices including the cooling and heating systems serviced and cleaned. Getting a service contract can help you save a lot of labor charges in case your equipment gets damaged in the freezing winter. If you have shifted to a new town or city check with the neighbors to get the names of those companies that are reliable and trustworthy when it comes to servicing mechanical devices.

Cabinets And Closets

Whether it’s storing your dishware, crockery, clothes or footwear you need to have a good system of cabinets and closets to keep all your things organized and in place. If your new house already has enough number of cabinets and good closet system make sure you clean it thoroughly before moving in. If you don’t have enough number of cabinets or an efficient closet system you can consider installing new ones or make additions to the existing ones.

A closet system with hanging poles, shelves and drawers will allow you to keep all your clothes and personal things organized. This will free your bedrooms from unwanted clutter. Having a sufficient number of cabinets in the kitchen can help you store all your kitchenware inside keeping your kitchen neat and organized.

Leakage

A home inspector usually checks the entire home to ensure that it’s free from leakage. However, in rare cases, a minor fault or a leakage from an underground pipe could go unnoticed. To make sure that your home is free of leaks you can check the reading on the water meter. Note the reading on the water meter and wait for a few hours and check the reading again. If there has been a change you can make sure that there is water leakage. Get it fixed with the help of a professional before moving in. This will prevent further damages in the future and you wouldn’t end up paying huge amounts of money as water charges.

Clean The Entire House

Even if the house looks quite clean and tidy you might want to do a thorough cleaning once again to make sure every nook and cranny is clean enough before moving your things in. You can either do it yourself or hire a service to get your house cleaned. Vacuuming, mopping and washing the entire home including the cabinets, bathroom fixtures and kitchens is the best way to feel good about a space that was used by others previously.

Make Sure The Smoke Alarms Function

Safeguards like a smoke alarm need to be in working condition or installed to prevent serious accidents that could take place. Test this equipment to ensure that it functions properly. You could also consider installing a carbon monoxide detector if your new house doesn’t have one.

It’s quite understandable when you say that moving into a new home itself is an enormous task and you wish to make it as hassle-free as possible. You don’t want it to be strenuous by taking up more tasks. The truth is putting these tasks off would make it quite difficult to tackle as the days and years go by. Once you’ve taken care of all the ones that are necessary you can move in, get settled and start enjoying your life in this new space.