When we moved, I remember standing in our new sitting room surrounded by boxes, three little boys underfoot, and thinking ‘this doesn’t feel like us yet.’ The walls were the wrong colour. The light hit differently to what I was used to. Even the sound the front door made felt strange. It took time — more time than I expected — before this house properly became our home rather than just the place we’d landed.
We’re not the only ones going through this. Ireland’s population grew by nearly 100,000 people in the 2024 CSO figures — the largest increase in sixteen years — and a population increase of 66,900 in the 12 months ending April 2026. With that comes a huge amount of house moving, house hunting, and settling in happening across the country right now. If you’re in the middle of it, or about to be, here’s what actually helped us turn a new house into home.
I think what surprised me most was how much the emotional settling in lagged behind the practical settling in. The boxes were unpacked within a fortnight. The feeling of it actually being ours took a good deal longer, and nobody really tells you that beforehand. You expect the logistics to be the hard part. Often it’s the quieter adjustment that takes the longest.
Get the Move Itself Sorted So You Have Energy Left
This part isn’t the fun bit, but it matters more than people think, because a chaotic move eats into the energy you need for all the nesting that comes after it.
We compared a few removal companies before booking rather than just going with the first one — look for good resources like FindaMover which makes it easy for pricing and booking removalists in Australia, you just enter your details once and get a few quotes back to compare. Worth the extra half hour, especially when you’re trying to keep three boys entertained and packed at the same time.
If you’ve a longer move and a vehicles to relocate as well - boat, car, trailer motorcycle whatever it may be, it’s worth knowing convenient services like Vehicle Move can transport anything with wheels separately so you’re not adding a long drive to an already big day. And if your move has a few moving parts, like if you’re moving between islands in New Zealand, a handy resource to turn to is Movingle to book house movers and vehicle transporters, it also helps keep it all in one place rather than in your head, which by moving week tends to already be full.
Live In It Before You Decide Anything
My biggest piece of advice, and the one I wish someone had properly drilled into me before our move: don’t make any big interiors decisions in the first few weeks. Live in the space first.
The sofa position that seems obvious on day one often turns out to be wrong once you notice where the afternoon light actually falls, or that the boys’ favourite spot for building Lego is right in that corner by the window. Give yourself a proper month before you commit to anything more permanent than where the telly goes.
One Room That's Properly Yours, First
Rather than trying to get the whole house sorted in one exhausting push, we focused on getting our sitting room right first. Everywhere else stayed a bit chaotic for a good while — boxes in the spare room, half-hung pictures in the hall — but having one space that actually felt like us gave us somewhere to properly relax while the rest slowly came together.
With the boys, we did the same for their rooms. Beds up and their favourite things out on day one, even if the paint colour and the shelving came weeks later. Having a space of their own that felt settled straight away made a genuine difference to how quickly they stopped asking when we were going home — meaning our old home, which took a little untangling to explain.
Bring Pieces That Carry Memory
A new house can feel quite blank and impersonal in those early weeks, however lovely the bones of it are. What changed that for us wasn’t buying lots of new things — it was bringing through the pieces that already meant something. The mirror from my nan’s house. The boys’ growth chart marked on an old bit of wood rather than the wall this time. Photos up early, even before the frames matched or the gallery wall was properly planned.
These small things did more to make the house feel like ours than any amount of new furniture could have. If you’re moving, I’d genuinely prioritise unpacking and displaying the sentimental things early, even ahead of the practical stuff. It changes how a room feels almost instantly.
Even something as simple as putting the same tea towels in the same drawer position as the old kitchen made a strange kind of difference for me personally. Tiny, almost silly things, but they gave my hands something familiar to reach for in a space that otherwise felt entirely new.
Don't Rush the Big Purchases
It’s tempting to want everything sorted immediately, especially with kids watching you unpack and asking when their room will be ‘done.’ But rushing into big furniture or paint decisions before you’ve properly lived in a space tends to mean redoing things later.
We waited a full season, even finding the best cheap summer activities for kids at home before doing anything permanent in the boys’ rooms beyond the basics, and I’m glad we did — what we thought we wanted in week two wasn’t what actually worked once we’d settled into how the family really used the space day to day.
It Takes Longer Than You Expect, and That's Alright
Somewhere around the two month mark, ours properly started to feel like home rather than somewhere we were staying. If you’re not there yet, that’s completely normal. Every house takes time to absorb a family into it, and every family takes a little time to settle into a house.
Be patient with the process, and with the boxes still sitting in the spare room longer than you’d like. It comes together in the end, and honestly, some of my favourite family memories now are from those slightly chaotic early weeks — the boys building dens out of the moving boxes before we’d even properly unpacked them.
