Moving Into Your First Home Checklist (UK), Room by Room

Most moving checklists are about solicitors, removal vans and meter readings. This one is about the rooms: what to measure before you get the keys, what to buy in the first week, what to leave until later, and how to make sure the big pieces go through the door.

You are not behind if the rooms stay half empty for a while. In Aldermore's 2024 survey, half of UK first-time buyers lived in empty homes for months, often because the deposit took the budget, and 20% were unhappy with how the rooms turned out. The checklist below puts the money where it does the most, in the right order.

The checklist, to print

Tick each line as you go. The numbers come from the sections below, each with its source.

✓	When	Task	The number to know
☐	Before moving day	Measure every wall at floor level, and the ceiling height	Write it in cm on a sketch of each room
☐	Before moving day	Measure each window, with its sill height from the floor	For curtains, blinds and anything under the window
☐	Before moving day	Measure the clear width of every door on the way in	About 70–72 cm on a 762 mm door
☐	Before moving day	Measure the hall, the stairs, the landing turn and any lift	Stairs: 2 m headroom in new work; often less in old houses
☐	Before moving day	Read the TA10 (buying) or the inventory (renting): what stays	Curtains, poles, light fittings, carpets
☐	Before moving day	Check your current sofa, bed and wardrobe fit the new rooms and doors	Depth, height and diagonal depth against the narrowest door
☐	Moving day	Label boxes by room, and tell the movers which room is which	—
☐	Moving day	Take dated photos of every room before you unpack	Walls, floors, marks; meter readings too
☐	Moving day	Test the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms	One smoke alarm on every level, tested monthly
☐	Moving day	Put the bed together first	Leave about 75 cm beside it and at the foot
☐	First week	Curtains or blinds for the bedroom and street-facing rooms	Pole 10–15 cm above the frame
☐	First week	Two or three lamps, and warm white bulbs	2700–3000 K, the same in each room
☐	First week	Somewhere to sit and to eat (borrowed or second-hand is fine)	—
☐	First month	Tape the sofa's footprint on the floor before you order it	Walkway 75–90 cm; sofa about ⅔ of its wall
☐	First month	Try paint samples on two walls, morning and evening	—
☐	Month two or later	The rug, sized from the sofa	15–20 cm past each end of the sofa
☐	Month two or later	Art and shelves, once the furniture is in place	Art centred 145–150 cm from the floor

Before moving day: measure everything

You may get one or two visits before completion. Use one for a tape measure and your phone. These numbers decide what you can buy, so they are worth an hour.

One room, measured. The amber figures are the ones people forget. Every measurement is in cm.

Every wall, at floor level. Furniture stands against the skirting, so measure there. Measure long walls twice.
The ceiling height, in two corners. It matters for wardrobes, bunk beds and loft rooms.
Each window: its width with the frame, its height, and the sill's height from the floor. You need these for curtains and blinds, and anything that goes under a window must be lower than the sill.
Each door: its width, which way it swings, and the clear width when open (from the door stop to the face of the open door). A standard 762 mm UK door leaves about 70–72 cm.
The fixed things: radiators, sockets, the TV point, switches, a chimney breast and the depth of its alcoves.
The way in: the front door, the hall at its narrowest, the stairs (width, headroom and the turn at the landing) and, in a flat, the lift and the shared entrance.

Then draw each room on squared paper at one square to 10 cm. It takes ten minutes a room, and it turns every later decision into arithmetic. Our guide to telling if furniture will fit takes the same numbers through every check.

Find out what stays

If you are buying in England or Wales, the seller fills in the Law Society's Fittings and Contents Form (TA10). It lists, room by room, whether the curtains, poles, blinds, light fittings and carpets stay. Read it before completion: it tells you which windows will be bare and which rooms will have a bare bulb on day one.

If you rent, agree the inventory (or check-in report) and take your own dated photos of every room. The government's former How to Rent guide gave the same advice, and it protects your deposit at the end. Our guide to decorating a rented flat covers what you can change without asking.

Moving day: the rooms

Photos first. Take dated photos of every room, and of the meters, before a single box comes in.
Test the alarms. UK government advice is a smoke alarm on every level of your home, tested monthly.
Bed first. Put it together before anything else, in its final place, with about 75 cm beside the side you get in and at the foot. That is the figure Approved Document M uses for new accessible homes.
Big pieces where they will live. Moving a sofa twice is harder than placing it once. If you are not sure yet, leave it in the middle of the room, not against a wall that you may want for something else.

What to buy first

In TwentyCi's 2025 data on UK movers, orders for beds and sofas peak on the first or second day after getting the keys. Soft furnishings, such as curtains and cushions, peak in the second month. We would change that order a little: buy what you use every night straight away, and wait on the pieces that depend on the room.

Buy first	Why now	Check before you buy
Bed and mattress	You use it from night one	Mattress sizes: double 135 × 190 cm, king 150 × 200 cm (Silentnight). A king mattress must go round your stair turn on its side
Curtains or blinds	Privacy, and a dark bedroom	Pole 10–15 cm above the frame (Jim Lawrence); the TA10 tells you if poles stay
Two or three lamps	Many rooms come with only a ceiling light	Warm white, 2700–3000 K, and the same bulbs in each room (BLT Direct)
Somewhere to sit and eat	Daily life	Borrowed, second-hand or cheap for now: 27% of first-time buyers in Aldermore's survey furnished second-hand
A basic toolkit	Flat-pack, curtain poles, picture hooks	A 5 m tape, a spirit level, screwdrivers, masking tape

Our guide to warm white and cool white bulbs explains the kelvin numbers on the box.

What to wait on

These pieces depend on how you use the room, and you only learn that by living in it. A few weeks is usually enough to know where the light falls at different times of day, where you walk, and where you want to sit.

The sofa. It is often the most expensive piece, and the biggest to get through the door. Tape its footprint on the floor first. Designers like it about two thirds of the wall behind it, with a walkway of 75–90 cm. Most three-seaters are 85–100 cm deep.
The rug. Its size follows the sofa: designers like it to run 15–20 cm past each end of the sofa, under its front legs. Our rug size calculator picks the UK stock size once you know the sofa.
Paint. Try samples on two walls, and look at them in the morning and the evening. The same colour can look very different in a north-facing and a south-facing room.
Art and shelves. Hang them after the furniture, so they relate to it. The picture height calculator gives the hook height.
The TV mount. Drill once, at the right height: the TV height calculator works it out from your sofa.
Built-in storage. Live with the room's clutter for a month to learn where storage is really needed.

Furniture through the door

In one survey of 1,500 UK furniture buyers, 49% had ordered something that would not fit through the door or up the stairs (Fixtuur, via CMOtech, 2025; Fixtuur sells 3D tools). These are the pieces to check, against the narrowest door on the route.

Piece	Usual size	Against a door with about 71 cm clear
Three-seater sofa	85–100 cm deep	Too deep to carry straight. Fits tipped back if its diagonal depth is under 71 cm, ideally under 66 cm
Two-seater sofa	80–95 cm deep	The same test. Check the turn into the room as well
Double mattress	135 × 190 cm	Goes through on its side. Check the stair turn and headroom
Bed frame, wardrobe	Usually flat-packed	The boxes pass; build them in the room they will live in
Your current sofa	Measure it	If it came into your old home, it can still fail at a narrower door or a lift

The sofa fit calculator runs the full test on your own numbers: straight through, tipped back, and the turn at the hall.

Room by room

Bedroom

Bed size against the room: about 75 cm beside each side you use and at the foot. In a 3 × 3 m room, a double bed (about 200 cm long with its headboard) leaves 100 cm at the foot.
A wardrobe's hinged doors need a clear quarter-circle as wide as each door, plus room to stand.
Window covering first: the room you most need dark and private.

Living room

The sofa on the longest wall without a door, about two thirds of its length.
35–45 cm from the sofa to the coffee table, and 75–90 cm on the main route from the door.
Two or three lamps around the edges, not one light in the middle. Our small living room layouts show eight UK room shapes with every gap marked.

Kitchen and dining

Behind a dining chair: about 81 cm if no one walks past, 112 cm if someone does (NKBA).
Check the fridge-freezer space before moving day: height, width, depth, and the door's swing.

Hall

Measure its narrowest point, usually at a radiator. New accessible homes need 900 mm, narrowing to 750 mm at a radiator (Approved Document M). Older halls are often narrower.

Five first-home mistakes

Buying the sofa in week one. It is the costliest piece and the hardest to return. Live in the room first.
Buying a rug before the sofa. The rug's size follows the sofa, not the other way round.
Measuring the room but not the way in. The hall turn, the stairs and the lift decide as much as the room.
Filling every wall at once. Pieces pushed against every wall leave no room to rearrange later.
Painting before living there. Test samples in morning and evening light first.

Plan the empty rooms before the first delivery

An empty room is the easiest room to plan and the hardest to picture. Snuug, the iPhone room app, lets you furnish it before you spend.

Your new room, in 3D. Walk once round each room with your iPhone, and Snuug rebuilds it to within about 3% of its real size, in our tests of ten homes. Our team checks every room by hand, so the walls, doors and windows are right.
Try the sofa before you order it. Paste a shop link and see the piece in your room at its real size. Move it in 5 cm steps and watch the walkway as you go.
Paint the walls before you buy a tin. Try the colour on your own walls, then the next one.
Know what to buy first. Members get a Room Analysis for each room: what to change, feature by feature, and a plan that starts with the free moves and builds up in the order that makes sense for your budget. If you rent, every fix says whether it is renter-safe.

A short taste test gives you a style card, so the suggestions follow what you like, not what a showroom likes. Your first room is free.

Questions

What should I buy first when moving into a new home?

A bed and mattress, curtains or blinds for the bedroom and any street-facing rooms, and two or three lamps with warm white bulbs (2700–3000 K). Add something to sit on and eat at, borrowed or second-hand if need be. The sofa, rug and art can wait until you know the room.

What do I need for my first flat in the UK?

For the rooms: a bed, window coverings, lamps, a tape measure, a basic toolkit and somewhere to sit. If you rent, agree the inventory or check-in report and take dated photos of every room before you unpack. Check the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms work on day one.

What should I measure before moving house?

Each wall at floor level, the ceiling height, every window with its sill height, the radiators and sockets, and the clear width of every door, plus the hall, the stairs and any lift on the way in. A standard 762 mm internal door leaves only about 70–72 cm to carry furniture through.

Should I buy a sofa before I move in?

Only if you have measured the room and the route in. In TwentyCi's data, beds and sofas are ordered most on the first or second day after getting the keys, but a sofa is the biggest piece to get through the door. Tape its footprint on the floor first, and check its depth, height and diagonal depth against your narrowest door.

Will a sofa fit through a standard UK door?

Most three-seaters are 85–100 cm deep, so they will not go straight through a 762 mm door with about 71 cm clear. They go through tipped back if their diagonal depth is under the clear width, ideally with 5 cm to spare. Taking the door off its hinges gains another 35–40 mm.

What do sellers have to leave when you buy a house?

In England and Wales, the seller lists what stays and what goes on the Law Society's Fittings and Contents Form (TA10): curtains, poles, light fittings, carpets and more, room by room. Read it before completion, so you know which windows will be bare and which rooms will have only a bulb.

Editorial notes

Written by the Snuug team and checked on 1 November 2026. A number with no source beside it is a designers' rule of thumb, not a study.