The kettle is the obvious one. The other twenty items are the ones nobody thinks of until they need them at 9pm in an unfamiliar kitchen.
After ten thousand moves we’ve watched a lot of move-day mornings unfold. The pattern is consistent: the family that packed a proper survival kit for the day is calm by 5pm and asleep on a real bed by 11pm; the family that didn’t is still hunting for the toothbrush at midnight. The difference is one carton.
This guide is the contents of that one carton. Tape it red. Pack it last. Load it last onto the lorry so it comes off first at the new property. Or better — travel with it in your own car so it’s never out of your hands. The list below is the everything-you-actually-need-on-day-one set, drawn from the practical experience of moving households since 1982.
The first-night kitchen needs to function at a minimum level the moment you arrive. The kettle is non-negotiable. So is one mug per family member, tea or coffee, milk (bring it in a cool bag from the old house), sugar if you take it, kitchen towel, and a roll of clingfilm or some sandwich bags for the food you’ll buy on the way.
Add: one set of plates and cutlery per family member (single set, not the family wedding china), one mug, one frying pan, one saucepan, one chopping board, a knife, a spatula. Bottle opener and wine opener — yes, both. A few sponges, washing-up liquid, a tea-towel. Salt, pepper, oil. That’s the entire kitchen for 24 hours.
What you don’t need on day one: the food processor, the slow cooker, the spice rack, the second-best china, the third saucepan. Pack those properly using the kitchen-packing guide — they’ll surface in the proper unpacking over the following week.
The bathroom is the most common forgotten room. The list: toilet roll (two rolls — the previous owner has almost certainly taken theirs), hand soap or liquid soap, a hand towel and one bath towel per family member, your toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, soap), any prescription medications.
For families with younger children: their bath toys, their shampoo, their toothbrush in its travel case, any specific products they need. For adults with allergies or medical conditions: your specific medications and the prescription paperwork. Don’t leave prescriptions in the lorry — they travel with you in the car always.
A small first-aid kit covers minor injuries from the move itself — bandages, ibuprofen, antiseptic wipes, plasters. Moving day generates more scrapes and bumps than people expect; having the kit accessible saves a chemist run on day one.
Bedding is the second-most-common overlooked category. You need: one set of sheets, one duvet cover and pillowcases per bed, the duvet itself, pillows, a blanket (handy if the heating isn’t working yet). If you have children, their familiar bedding and any sleep-companion teddy or comforter.
The beds themselves will be among the first pieces unloaded from the lorry (the crew loads them in a stack-safe order — see the moving-day step-by-step guide). Make them up before anything else — the rest of the unpacking can wait, but a made bed is the single biggest contribution to a calm first night.
If you’ve booked a full packing service, our crew can also put the bedding back on once the bed frames are reassembled. Mention it at survey. Otherwise, pack the bedding into one clearly-labelled carton (FIRST NIGHT / BEDROOM) and unpack it within the first 30 minutes of arriving.
A small toolkit saves a lot of swearing on the first night. The list: a Stanley knife or scissors for opening cartons (the crew brings their own but you’ll be unpacking after they leave), a small screwdriver set (Phillips and flat), a hammer, a tape measure, a level. Picture hooks and a small bag of screws. A roll of masking tape for labelling.
Batteries — AA and AAA — for the smoke alarms, the remote controls, the kids’ battery-operated toys. The new house’s smoke alarms are almost certainly bleeping because the previous owners didn’t change them; the bleep at 2am is one of moving day’s great clichés. Have batteries on hand.
Other random useful items: a torch (and spare batteries), a power strip (your laptop charger plus the kettle plus a phone), bin bags (everything generates them on move day), a notepad and a pen. The notepad is for the meter readings, the things-to-do list, and the “ask the previous owner about X” list.
One small bag with documents that should never leave your sight. Passports, driving licences, the move contract, the contract for the property purchase, the conveyancer’s contact details, the keys to the new property (handed to you on completion day — don’t put them in your pocket and forget which pocket), insurance documents, the children’s school records, pet vaccination records.
Add: any cash you’re carrying, jewellery, prescription medications. These should NEVER go in the lorry. Standard goods-in-transit insurance excludes irreplaceable documents and valuables; the safest place for them is in your car or on your person.
Phone chargers — at least two (one for the car, one for the new house). One phone charger gets misplaced on every move; having a spare prevents the “phone died at 7pm” failure mode. A power bank as backup if you can. The 10-most-forgotten-items guide covers the wider list.
The kitchen won’t be functional for proper cooking on the first night. Plan for this. Either pre-arrange a takeaway from a local place near the new property (Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats all work; pick the place before move day), or pack a cooler box with sandwich-makings, fruit, drinks and snacks for the family.
Add a few bottles of water. The water at the new property is fine to drink but the kettle won’t be unpacked for the first hour and cold tap water from an unfamiliar pipe is psychologically less appealing than a cool bottle from the cooler. Same logic for milk and soft drinks for the kids.
For adults: a bottle of wine or beer in a cool bag, opened with the bottle opener from the kitchen kit. The first sit-down at the new house is one of the small move-day pleasures; having something nice to drink isn’t a luxury, it’s an investment in psychological wellbeing. The step-by-step guide covers when this moment usually arrives.
If you have pets, their entire daily kit travels with you in the car. Food bowl, water bowl, food, leash, favourite toy, carrier (for cats), blanket from the old house, prescribed medications. The moving-with-pets guide covers the broader plan.
Houseplants travel in the car too if the journey is short. For longer moves they may need to go in the lorry — talk to us at survey. Either way, mark the cartons clearly. Plants that survive a move are usually the ones whose conditions stayed roughly consistent across the day.
For older relatives or anyone with mobility issues moving with you: their specific needs (walking stick, reading glasses, hearing aids, medication, a comfortable chair to sit in during the load) need to be planned for explicitly. Don’t leave older relatives in an empty room with no chair to sit on; arrange for one comfortable chair to remain accessible throughout the load and the unload.
We've been a family-run Sussex remover since 1982 — the same name on the lorry as the name on the paperwork. Mark personally surveys the high-value and overseas moves; our crews are directly employed (not casual day labour) and trained at our own staff training centre, one of only a handful of UK removers with that facility on site.
Standard inclusions on every full removal: pad-wrap protection for every freestanding piece of furniture, removal-grade cartons, a written and itemised fixed-price quote with no surprises on the day, and the British Association of Removers' Advance Payment Guarantee protecting every deposit. The result, over forty years and tens of thousands of moves, is a 4.9/5 review average across 120+ independent Google reviews.
Booking the survey takes ten minutes. Whether it's a one-bedroom flat across Eastbourne or a country house to overseas, the process is the same: in-home or video survey, written quote within 48 hours, deposit-protected booking, and a calm move day.
Free in-home or video survey, written fixed-price quote, BAR-protected deposit. Sussex’s family-run remover since 1982.
The kettle. Plus mugs, tea, milk. The first sit-down with a cup of tea is the moment the move stops being chaos and starts being ‘our new house’.
Your car, not the lorry. If you absolutely have to put it in the lorry, tape it bright red, label it FIRST NIGHT, and load it LAST so it's the FIRST off at the other end.
One shared kit for the household, plus a small personal overnight bag per person (clothes, toothbrush, pyjamas, phone charger). Children’s overnight bags should include a favourite teddy.
Either pre-arrange a takeaway from a local place near the new property, or pack a cool bag with sandwich-makings and snacks. The kitchen won’t be functional for proper cooking in the first 24 hours.
Separately, in the survival kit. You'll need the Stanley knife, screwdriver, hammer and tape measure within the first hour at the new house — they shouldn't be buried in a packed carton.