When the house is positively and actually selected and the move imminent, when the lease is signed and the decorations are in train, the first step to take is to get several estimates from firms who are accustomed to do nothing else save move furniture. In nothing does price fluctuate so much as it does in these estimates, and when we moved from Dorsetshire to Shortlands there was actually and positively a difference of 100_l._ in the highest and lowest of the many estimates we had, the person selected being just 100_l._ lower in his price than the man who made us our first offer.
To move luxuriously we should have taken house number two for a quarter before we are obliged to leave our own. Of course if we could persuade the landlord to let us have it for six weeks it would be better; but not many landlords are as accommodating as this, and unfortunately many of us cannot afford a double rent even for such a short space of time. Still an effort should be made, as undoubtedly much is wasted in a hurried move--in an enforced turning out on quarter day into another house on the same date.
It is only people in very straitened circumstances who accept in these artistic days of ours the landlord’s scheme of decoration. Formerly there were no ideas in the head of an ordinary paterfamilias on the subject of paint and paper, and as long as all was clean and in good condition he did not agitate himself in the least about his surroundings as far as mere colour and ‘decoration’ were concerned, and he cheerfully spread his Turkey carpet and placed his heavy sideboard and mahogany table and chairs in position, regardless of the fact that the ‘good’ flock paper and vulgar graining made up a _tout ensemble_ as utterly depressing as it was tasteless and absolutely without character.
But now, I am glad to think, what is already in one’s possession governs in some measure what alterations are to be made, and as fate never yet was so propitious as to put one down straight from one house into another which was exactly decorated to our taste, we may be quite sure that there are many things to do to any place to which we may contemplate moving; therefore I say if possible let the two leases, _i.e._ of your present and your future house, run side by side for six weeks at least: so shall you move comfortably, and be able to make those alterations that are perfectly sure to be necessary.