How long you're here
A short attachment
How longWeeks or a season, not a settling-in
You are here for a defined, short stretch and then you are somewhere else. The property is usually furnished or serviced, and the correct answer to most of what you own is to leave it where it is.
What the term decides
The right move is a part-load, not a household. Bringing a full home for a short attachment costs twice — once to bring it, once to take it back — and the second cost always arrives at a worse moment than the first.
The property is usually already furnished. That removes beds, sofas, wardrobes, white goods and most of the kitchen from the list before anybody packs anything, and what is left is clothes, papers, a workspace and the things that make a serviced flat tolerable.
Storage is the other half of the job. Whatever is not coming has to sit somewhere for the duration, and sitting in a relative’s garage is the arrangement that most often goes wrong.
You will accumulate. Everybody does. The return journey is reliably larger than the outward one, which is worth knowing when you are deciding how much space to book at this end.
What we do about it
Quote a part-load as a part-load rather than as a small household move
Take the rest into store under one sealed inventory, so it is accounted for while you are away
Tell you plainly what the furnished property already has, if you have not seen it yet
Hold the return leg loosely rather than pretending you know the date
The trap
Shipping or carting a whole household for a short stay. It is the most expensive mistake on this page and it is made almost entirely out of optimism.
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Here on a short attachment?
A short attachment, a full posting, indefinitely, or not at all any more. That one answer gets us further than a room count does, and it is the first thing we will ask.