You are moving in to one house; how can you do it without creating issues between the two of you? And I don't mean the actual selling of your present houses or ending of a rental agreement. This time I am going to be looking at your items and how you can integrate them in a single home.
Don't forget, planning everything in advance is the best way. Look at what you both own and then discuss what you want your new home to look like. Come to an agreement about what you want to take and what you want to dispose of, after all there is no way both sets of possessions will fit into the home. Be practical, don't just dispose of your furniture and start again, try and save yourselves some money and use what you already have without it looking mismatched. If you have a lovely old fashioned four poster bed and your partner has a modern dressing table, then they are unlikely to look good in the same room.
Be courteous, it is not nice or a good start if one of you has to give in the other each time. I mean, you might hate your partner‘s favourite chair or pillows, but that is no excuse to just throw out. You may be used to having your own way, after all you lived by yourself; but now there is two of you to think about, so ask them what they want. When you are living with someone, your home will never be furnished to only your own individual tastes.
Look at how many weeks you have before the move and break the jobs down into manageable portions. Dispose of items that are not moving with you in advance, I know it is difficult to throw out or sell personal items that belong to you. Just think of the the time saved, it is going to be hard enough packing, moving and unpacking your things, without moving items that you don't need. At the end of the day, sorting this in advance is going to save you time and may actually save you money as you don't have to pay out for items moving. You certainly cannot keep everything you have, it‘s as simple as that.
As a Toronto realtor, I have a proposal for you. Make a list of everything you own. It‘s logical that even though you have two microwaves, two washing machines and basically two of each item, you wont want it. Often just looking at the items makes the decision for you, but write down next to the item if it is going to be kept or going to be sold. Then think about what you can do with the items you don‘t want in your new household - having them unused in the garage might not be the best solution, you could perhaps sell them and get some extra money together.
Personally this is not a job I would look forward too, I can imagine it is extremely difficult to make decisions that are fair to both of you. Discussion really is the most important thing here, talk about it calmly and I‘m sure you will not have any big problems you can’t work through.