The truck pulls away, and everybody wants the house finished by Sunday. Beds built, pictures up, the kitchen working, the whole thing looking the way it did in your head.
Some of it does not work that way. A few things in a new house need a day, a week, or a whole season before they are ready, and pushing them along usually costs money.
Here is what to leave alone for a bit, and how long each one needs.
Give the Appliances a Day
This is the one that catches people out because the fridge sits in the kitchen, and it seems silly not to plug it in.
To prevent any damage, the trusted movers at Mayflower recommend leaving important appliances and electronics turned off for 24 hours after delivery so that they can properly adjust to the room temperature of your new home before turning them on.
That includes the fridge, freezer, washer, TV, and computer. They have spent two days in a truck that was either freezing or roasting, and the condensation inside them needs time to clear.
So plan dinner around it. Takeout on the first night and a cooler with milk and butter in it saves you a repair bill later, which is a decent trade.
Run the Water Before You Trust It
A house that sat empty for a few weeks has water sitting in the pipes and the water heater that whole time. Open every tap, start with the cold, and let them run for a few minutes until the water is clear and cold.
Run the washer empty once before the first real load, and the dishwasher too. Whatever was sitting in those hoses comes out on that cycle rather than on your towels.
Find the main water shutoff while you are at it. It takes two minutes on a calm afternoon, and it is horrible to go looking for it at midnight with a leak running.
Let the House Air Out
New paint, new carpet, and new flooring all give off a smell for a while, and so does a house that has been shut up with the heating off. Open the windows for a few hours a day in the first week, even when it’s cold out.
If the previous owners had pets or smoked, give it longer than you think. Most of that fades on its own over two or three weeks once air is moving through the rooms, and you will be glad you waited before shampooing anything.
The Mail and the Internet Have Their Own Pace
Mail forwarding usually takes a week or so to kick in, so expect a gap where things still land at the old address. Tell the people who send anything important, rather than trusting the forwarding to catch all of it.
Internet installs are the other wait. A new area can put you two or three weeks out for an appointment, and the only fix is booking it the day you have the keys. Until then, a hotspot gets you through, though not happily.
Don’t Paint Anything for a Month
Everybody arrives with a color in mind, and plenty of people repaint twice because they picked it in the first week.
Light is the reason. A room that looks warm and yellow at four in the afternoon can look grey at nine in the morning, and you cannot know that until you have sat in it on a few different days. Tape the samples to the wall, leave them up for a month, and look at them with the lamps on as well.
The same goes for where the furniture lands. The sofa spot that seemed obvious on day one is often wrong once you know which door everybody uses.
Wood Furniture and Houseplants Need a Week
Solid wood moves with the air around it. A table that came from a dry climate into a damp one, or the other way, will swell or shrink a little, so give it a week in the room before you tighten every screw or worry about a gap in a leaf.
Houseplants take it harder than anything else in the truck. Expect dropped leaves and a sulky week or two; keep the watering normal rather than generous, and leave them in one spot so they only have to adjust once.
The Kids, the Pets and You
People need the longest. Kids usually take a few weeks to stop treating the house as somewhere they are visiting, and the routines you keep in the meantime do more for that than any bedroom makeover.
Cats want one quiet room with their own things in it for the first few days before the whole house opens up. Dogs settle faster, though the first week of walks is mostly about learning where home is from the outside, so keep the route short and the same each time.
Then there’s you. The first month in a new house is the worst time to judge it, because nothing is familiar and everything takes longer. Give it a full season before you decide whether you love the place, and give the kitchen cabinets about the same amount of time before you rearrange them for the third time.
Almost nothing on this list needs money. It only needs you to leave a few things alone a little longer than you want to.
