A house full of toys turns a move from “get everything in boxes” into a small logistics project of its own. Loose pieces go missing. Favourite toys end up buried at the bottom of a van. And somehow the box marked “kids’ room” is always the last one anyone can find. None of that is inevitable. A bit of sorting before you pack, and a couple of small decisions about what travels separately, sorts most of it out.
Start with a sort, not a box
Before a single toy goes into a box, sort them into three piles: keep, donate, bin. It sounds obvious, but most people skip straight to packing and end up moving things they’d have happily got rid of anyway, which means paying to transport clutter into a new home. Broken toys, incomplete sets, and anything the kids haven’t touched in six months are usually easy calls. The harder ones, the toys with sentimental weight attached, are worth putting aside and coming back to once the rest is sorted. Doing this the week before the move, not the night before, gives you time to actually think about it rather than shove everything in a bin bag at 11pm.
How to pack toys for a house move
Clear plastic storage boxes work better than cardboard for toys, mainly because you can see what’s inside without opening every box on the other end. If you’re sticking with cardboard, label clearly by room and by rough content, not just “toys,” since that tells the movers nothing about which room it belongs in.
Small parts need their own system. Lego, jigsaw pieces, board game components: bag these separately and tape the bag to the toy or box it belongs with, or you’ll spend the first week in the new house hunting for the eleven Monopoly pieces that went missing somewhere between the two houses. Soft toys are useful as padding around anything fragile, so there’s no need to buy extra bubble wrap if you’ve got a box of teddies doing nothing.
Anything with batteries is worth a quick check before packing. Remove batteries from toys that make noise or light up, both to stop them draining in transit and to stop a box of toys going off unexpectedly during the move.
Keep one “moving day” box separate
Set aside a single bag or small box with a handful of favourite toys, a comforter, and anything your child would genuinely be upset to lose track of for a day. This travels with you, not in the removals van. Moving day is disruptive enough for young children without their favourite toy being unreachable until the van’s unloaded and every box is found. This is a small thing to arrange and it makes the day noticeably easier for everyone.
What to do with toys they’ve outgrown
Every family accumulates toys nobody plays with anymore: baby toys a five-year-old has long outgrown, duplicate stuffed animals, games missing half their pieces. A move is a natural point to deal with this, since you’re already sorting everything anyway.
Charity shops will usually take toys in good condition. Local nurseries and playgroups sometimes welcome donations too, and it’s worth checking Facebook Buy Nothing or Freecycle groups in your current area before you move, since local groups are often keener to take toys than shops that need to check safety standards on anything electrical or with small parts. Doing this before the move rather than after means you’re not paying to transport things you were going to get rid of anyway, and you’re not adding “sort out the old toys” to an already long list of jobs in the new house.
Setting up toy storage in the new home
Resist the urge to buy new toy storage furniture before you’ve even unpacked. In the first few days, simple and flexible beats permanent. Label boxes by room so they land in roughly the right place on move-in day, and keep one “everything else” box on hand for the odds and ends that don’t fit a clear category. This means you’re not hunting through fifteen boxes for a specific toy on day two.
Once you’ve settled in and have a better sense of the space, that’s the point to think about proper storage, whether that’s a toy box in the living room, shelving in a bedroom, or a dedicated corner of the playroom. Making that decision after living in the house for a couple of weeks, rather than before you’ve even seen how the family actually uses the rooms, usually gets a better result.
Related reading
If you’re still working through what to keep and what to let go of more broadly, our guide to downsizing and decluttering before a house removal covers the same principle across the whole house, not just the toy box. And once you’re in and unpacking, our guide to efficient unpacking after a house removal picks up exactly where this one leaves off.