Does anyone actually ENJOY unpacking? Lol

I keep fantasising about unpacking in my dream home, and in my dream it’s a lovely experience of excitement and contentment. But I wonder if it’d actually REALLY be like this…cause I’ve unpacked in 2 places before, and both were fraught and frustrating times. Lol. Tedious, annoying and stressful. Many small fights between my partner and I.

But I wonder if this is cause we weren’t in places we were really happy with…hmm.

I can honestly say i enjoy unpacking if there is the right spot for it in the first place. I hate temporary spots.
I HATE packing.

If your house is finished and everything is OK, unpacking is a dream. If it's incomplete or has lot's of work still to go, unpacking is a nightmare.

No, hated it, the boxes never seem to end plus you have to work out where to put everything. In the end I ended up doing several runs to Vinnies as I could not work out why I even bothered packing some of the stuff esp when it had been sitting in boxes for the past 18months and never missed.

Cheers Lou

I loved unpacking and putting all of my belongings in their new spots.. Just like you mentioned.
We didn't have much though as we eliminated as we packed..

Did I enjoy unpacking?

No, I did not.

THat is why the garage is till half full of boxes 9 months later because I simply CANNOT bring myself to get out there and unpack all the cr*p.

it still sits in the boxes

I love when I "discover" something nice unpacking. I get so surprised as I totally forgot about so many beautiful things ...
On the other hand, I get equally surprised (but disappointed) when I see that I still have this or that which I haven't used or even seen for yonks ...

BTW, packing is hard (especially if you are meticulous )

i usually get excited for the opening of the first box, then realise how much work it's gunna be and it's downhill from there till it's finished

Heh, forgot I'd started this thread just over a year ago.

I still fantasise about unpacking in my dream apartment. We have FOUND our dream apartment now, but sadly probably won't be able to get it. It is a bit out of our reach budget-wise and it is not a seller's market right now. We are putting our place on the market in the next month though, so at least hopefully someting will happen that helps us in some way...or at least we'll know if we have no hope of achieving the price we'd need to buy anything else we like.

Anyway...so my "rules" for enjoying unpacking are...

1. Having a large enough new place that even if you have a LOT of space (like we do), it doesn't feel as much like boxes are collapsing in on you all the time, no matter where you are in the property.

2. Having a large enough new place that all boxes can actually go where they BELONG before they are unpacked. I HATED this about our current place when we first moved - we couldn't fit half the boxes where they should've gone so they were all in the living room. I am a person who needs comfort and escapism when in stressful or changeable situations, and this means having my living room set up with TV and DVD player, my computer with internet access, and my bedroom, looking GOOD and finished. This does NOT mean having the living area so full of boxes all stacked 10 high x 10 deep that we couldn't even SEE the living area!! Half the boxes eventually went into the study, the other half into storage downstairs. It was a NIGHTMARE.

For this reason, I tend to always unpack the master bedroom first so at least even if nothing else gets finished that first night, we can retire, exhausted, to our perfectly unpacked bedroom.

3. Having all your furniture in its right place so it looks good in the rooms. With our current place, it's never looked good because we simply have too much stuff. Everything was arranged as nicely as possible, but it's all very crowded and interior design desires tend to be forced out the window when you HAVE to have so many things in each room. You just slot them in where you have the space, thus leaving NO space at all.

4. Having the new place in an area you like. For me, this means being within walking distance to the beach and my favourite shopping / cafe area. This is important (to me) because while unpacking, you may become bored, frustrated and very uncomfortable and tense, so you will be refreshed by a walk to a cafe or down the beach, or just exploring your neighbourhood on foot to get some fresh air and enjoy the surroundings you wanted to be in, which is partly why you moved in the first place.

5. Actually loving the place itself, so even if there are boxes all around, you can sit on the couch and sigh in contentment that THIS beautiful place is your home, and soon enough those boxes will be gone.

I cannot wait to MOVE IN......not so sure on the unpacking side of things though!

We'll have boxes from before I went overseas 7 years ago, boxes from when my husband and I got our house ready to sell in the UK 2 1/2 years ago, boxes that we didn't unpack from when we returned to Australia 2yrs ago, boxes that we unpacked 2years ago and repacked 4 months ago to store at my parents while we are living here and then, we'll have all the stuff we have out at the moment which we are using to move across as well!!

I have this idealistic thought that all of the boxes will fit in the garage and I will leisurely go through them one by one, putting all of our crockery etc in the dishwasher to give it a bit of clean before it goes in its new home and being able to wash all the linen/towels etc that was used as cushioning in our boxes, then being able to fold it all neatly and put into our new linen cupboards....

I am just not sure that it's going to happen, but I am sure as heck gonna try!!

At least we'll have a heap of storage!! Plus I am not planning on moving for a looooooong time, so we can take our time to unpack and sort stuff out!

I LOVE UNPACKING!

Now packing.. I hate it with a passion..

I get to unpack on Saturday.. soooooo excited!

I love unpacking (it kind of feels like a never ending Christmas morning - haha) and this time is going to be even better as so much of our 'stuff' will have been in boxes for about 2 years!! I am going to hire a skip for heaps and send the decent stuff to charity - we have lived without it this long, it can't be too important to me.....

Absolutely similar to me as I too loves the task of unpacking but hate to pack anything whenever I have to move outside.A lot depends on the fact that how far you have came across before the unpacking process as if you have came too far then may be you can feel a bit tired at that moment and just because of that tiredness may be you may not love the process of unpacking your items in your dream home too.

I can't wait to unpack in our new home, but need to pack first but shouldn't be too bad. When we moved in here a few months ago we only shifted about 1 km so did most in the back of the car (no boxes) which meant I could unpack straight away. It did take me lots of trips over a few days though.

I think I might enjoy it this time round, because I don't have a lot of stuff. And we are moving into a house that's got double the storage space than we've ever had.
In fact, it'll be easy because we won't have a lot of the furniture, so the boxes can stay packed and be done gradually as we get the right furniture, and there's lots of space so the boxes won't be in the way.
I sort of look forward to it coz I love a good clean out.