Over my longish life I have moved 7 times as a child and 19 times as an adult. The worst one as a child was when my father got promotion and we had to move to Hertfordshire from Yorkshire. I had to leave everything that meant most to me, go to a school with a different exam board, felt bereft at leaving my closest friend who I had known since I was 2 for 11 years and my beloved grandmother and the small farm she ran and where I felt so happy and at peace. My parents didnt think to explain that I could still be close friends, even though it would change in style. As an adult, I have moved abroad and in Britian, but at least was more in control, but I have lived 20 years in my home in north yorkshire with my lovely husband. I had my big garden on 3 levels and am a galanthophile and so had a whole range of snowdrops, also hellebores and planted trees etc. which gave me great joy over the years. He died 5 years ago and for health reasons I had to move to this small ground floor flat a few months ago. Practically speaking , it was the best thing to do and allows me to have at least as much ability to live my own way as I can. But moving to a place where Brian had never lived seemed particularly hard, and whilst cutting down on furniture it was leaving the garden that was the most difficult. I am a singer and have had a piano since a child and I had to leave it behind, which was so difficult to do. However the tips I have gleaned over the years that may be of help are these. Get some graph paper and draw up a plan of your new property, and check you have it correctly. Then measure up all the furniture you have and cut out small to scale plans of each piece and write the name on it , or put a number and then list the numbers and what they represent. Double check that you have the correct size plans of the new place and measure up any awkward corners where you might have difficulty getting something round such as upstairs. Then you can spend quite a while trying various pieces of furniture in each room. Firstly put things where you just fancy putting them, then look to see if they will fit in and give you space to move in between them and not be too enclosing. It can be good if you each do it on your own first without the other looking, so you can do your own juggling without being influenced by the other. Like a jigsaw, you move things about and mentally try out a variety of possibilities. You can also try something quite different to the present set up and may come up with something new. You will be a little sad when you realize that some favourite piece < like my piano _ will not fit in , however hard you try. That will give you time to accept that once you move this piece of furniture will not be coming with you. Once you have both worked out your own choice, then you can look at each others layout and compare and change and work out roughly what you think will work . The great thing about this is that it is so much easier to move bits of paper about not actual furniture, and when you do actually move you have a good clear idea as to where you want things to go to. Another small pleasure is , no doubt there is some furniture, ornaments , curtains etc that you dont really like but if they have been presents you feel you cant get rid of them. A little white lie , i feel is acceptable, so anything usable, just not your taste, can be taken to a charity shop ( I would go to a different town if family are likely to see the cherished ornament in the window !) and you can actually have the great pleasure , which I did once, of waiting until no one else is in and then smashing the hated ornament with a hammer or throwing it into the dustbin . Save them for a stressful day and it is very satisfying bashing it or jumping on it or cutting it up or whatever!! I would not set out to deliberately lie but if the donor asks you what happened to the little ornament , you can just say it got broken/lost in the move. Then hasten to add that actually there wasnt room for any more things and so you wont be replacing it, to avoid being given a replacement. If you have a garden at your new property, ask permission from the sellers to take photos over the time it takes to get to the moving stage. They dont need to be there , so long as you are allowed to just go into the garden and take pictures. Print the pictures, and write the date on the back and the weather and time of day you are there. Try to carry on doing that when you have moved and just keep them to one side. You will have lots to do when you get there and the gardent wont have high priority. So come the winter or autumn and on a horrid day you can get all the garden pictures out. Group areas of the garden together so you will end up with a view of for example a corner in shade. By looking at your pictures you will see if it is total shadow, or if it gets morning or evening light etc. This will help you on deciding what you might plant there and then I would suggest that you put the plants in pots in the area , not planting them for a little while. Then when you look out of the windows you will see where they are and if you have a good vision of them and how wind affects them etc.Then in years to come if you open your garden for the ngs or some charity, you have all these pictures of the garden and its changing moods over time . So back to the house stuff. I always had a small notebook in which I wrote down the dimensions of each room, the amount of wallpaper rolls needed , the curtain lengths (somehow you never find that the curtains from a previous house ever fit the new one!) . So as a woman with champagne taste but beer money, I would have this little notebook with me all the time, and wherever I went had it with me. So we once kept a room without anything in it for some months as we could not afford to change much but I was determined that one room would be our taste, which allowed me to put up with wallpaper I didnt like in the other rooms. So would go to charity shops, look at wallpaper sales and did very well by looking out for high quality end of run wallpapers. Check that the pattern is the same for each roll, and I would buy one extra roll to cover any shortfall and got lovely paper. Once we lived in a very big old terraced house that went back miles , with high ceilings etc. It needed 33 rolls of wallpaper for the hall landing and staircase . I kept looking and eventually found a simple little patterned end of stock roll, which also helped to deal with bumpy walls and it was £1 a roll. I bought the box and had 36 rolls for £36. It did that hall and was enough left over that when we moved again it did a small box room until we could afford what we wanted. Sorry I have been going on a bit, but do hope these ideas may be of help. The notebook for the house we were leaving , I gave to the buyers , with a few pictures of the garden at different times, the bakers butchers etc that we used, any tradesmans contact numbers that they might need, and left them a box of various odd rolls of paper etc that might be useful for them, with things like nearest library , the contact for local gardeners club, and the garage we used for any reparis. It gave then a little help when they first moved in and then they could make their own minds up. So perhaps some of these ideas might be helpful for your husband. He might be happy to do the plans and check the sizes etc. Starting up a new little house book for the new place and also putting sticks next to plants in the garden that you might want to dig up or split and take some with you. If you are moving quite a distance I booked a bed and breakfast for the first night near the new home. That way if there is any delay on the furniture arriving or it is quite late , you can do as much work as you feel up to on the day, buy takeaway fish and chips or curry and then know that you will be able to go and have a shower and a decent clean bed with a cooked breakfast and then you will face the day refreshed and be able to make a better job of it. I found that between 6 weeks and 2 months was the time that it was good to have a few days away, but dont go back to the old property area. We would go to the dales or to the coast, and just rest and have a little walk. I think you need 3 or 4 days away . Then when you go back to your new place it is the beginning of it feeling like home. I do hope that this is of some help to you. You do still have each other and that is the best thing of all . I wish you all the best in your move.