Most people would say that packing up and moving an entire home full of items isn’t an endeavor that they look forward to. Whether you’re making the move without any moving companies helping you or you have moving help, it can be a stressful time. Fact of the matter is, a lot of stuff can go the wrong, but a lot can go the right way too if you apply these packing and moving tips.
Getting Ready To Move
Preparation and organization are key to most successful projects and moving is no different.
1. Sell, Donate Or Throw Away Items You No Longer Want
Getting all of your possessions packed up can seem like an enormous task. To simplify the packing process, carefully go over all of your possessions and decide if any of them can be thrown out, donated or sold. This will save money on your moving costs and make packing easier on you.
2. Organize A Home Moving Folder
Collect all contracts from your movers, addresses, purchase or rental papers and phone numbers for electric, internet, cable and water services into one readily available home moving file folder.
When you do this you will have all the necessary information at your finger tips if any questions or problems materialize.
3. Start Packing Sooner Than Later
Carefully wrapping up your possessions and securing them in moving boxes can be a major chore. Usually, you’ll know that you’re moving weeks or even months in advance. Don’t make the mistake of trying to pack it all up at zero hour. This is a surefire way to misplace or damage your possessions. Instead, start your packing as soon as possible.
Consider items that you can do without for a short amount of time. Presumably you have extra sheets, rarely used dishes, out-of-season clothes and books that won’t be missed for a little while.
Every item you get packed today is one less item to be packed up over the last days before your movers arrive.
4. Schedule Movers And Storage Long In Advance
Movers get really busy from April through September. This is when about 80% of all moves take place. Hesitating to schedule your movers could result in higher prices or not being able to get movers on the required date.
This applies to cross-country moving companies and local movers. Consider other services you might need like house cleaners or contractors.
5. Arrange Utility Disconnection And Connection
Soon after the moving day gets finalized, reach out to the utility service providers to set up service for your new place. After a day of moving, the last thing you want to do is get there only to realize that the air conditioning, water, electric and heating are all disconnected.
Schedule your current utilities for deactivation as well.
Use your home moving file folder to keep receipts for any deposits and all final payments, confirmed connection and disconnect dates along with any other utility account records.
6. Don’t Transport Essential Items With Movers
Gather a change of clothes, a hair brush or comb and a toothbrush with toothpaste and put it in a suitcase for every member of your household. On moving day, this will travel with you in your vehicle so you won’t need to look through moving boxes to find them.
People with medical conditions, like diabetes for instance, should keep health care devices like blood pressure machines or glucose meters and prescription drugs with them during the move as well.
Best Packing Tips
1. Use the correct size moving boxes. Place heavier items like books and papers in smaller moving boxes and use larger boxes for lighter items like pillows and bedding. Stuffing larger boxes with heavier items is a sure way to break your belongings and injure your back.
2. Keep heavy possessions on the bottom of your moving boxes with lightweight possessions put on the top.
3. Utilizing packing paper or towels to fill in any gaps in the moving boxes.
4. Try to keep from merging belongings from one room with possessions from other rooms in the same moving boxes. This will make the unpacking much easy.
5. Using a Sharpie marker, write on all moving boxes a description of its contents and the room it’s going to. This will tell family and friends giving you moving help or your professional movers the correct room that every box belongs in. Every box that contains glass picture frames, glasses, dishes or any other fragile belongings should have “fragile” or “handle with care” written on it.
To make sure that every box gets there, write a specific number on all boxes and inventory it in your home moving folder. As your movers bring them into your new home, check off each one.
6. Looking for a nifty way to move your dishes to your new place? Try those big orange buckets. With a little gap around the sides for small towels or packing paper, they fit almost perfectly in there.
They can be be tough to find these days, but place a couple of disposable Styrofoam plates in-between your plates as you load them in and a few more on the bottom of the bucket. Traditional packing paper or bubble wrap can be substituted if disposable Styrofoam plates are not available to you.
Place bigger dishes on the bottom of the bucket and set other plates on top of them. Once all of your dishes are loaded in there, fill gaps with towels, smashed up newspaper or packing material to keep your plates from jiggling about and put the lid on.
