7 Moving Tips to Make Your Life Easier.
7 Moving Tips to Make Your Life Easier.
Bubble wrap can be fun to work with and you might need it just for the stress relief when it comes to moving day.
Moving is one of the most stressful things in life and for a good reason so here are some packing tips so you can save that bubble wrap as packing material instead of popping the bubbles.
Start packing early.
Put on some music and just get to it. If you're planning to move soon, just start the planning process while putting some items in boxes. A few weeks quickly go by and the rest of your life will take up some time as well.
Friends and family members will come to visit one last time and dealing with the whole process of trying to figure out what to do with heavy furniture while they're will only add to the stress.
Going steadily over a long period will save time because panic and stress devour valuable time. All your stuff needs a place to go to, whether that's a self-storage unit or garbage bags.
Starting early will give you time to figure out where all essential items are and in which boxes they should go in. Being able to plan out how you will pack boxes based on function will also make the unpacking process significantly easier.
While you may be tempted to spend a whole day packing, you can find that you run out of packing materials or appropriately sized boxes the day of. If you hire professional movers, you don't want to spend time running around fixing things at the last minute.
The fine print for a moving company can include fees for delaying the moving process or using the moving truck for longer than you originally booked.
Label everything carefully.
When you're completely packed, you don't want to lose track of which moving boxes contain eating utensils and which ones contain important documents.
If you move something from one box to another, make sure you re-label the original box as well as the new box.
Labelling is also super important when it comes to weight and which small boxes can safely go on top of bigger size boxes. Box labelling can help preserve fragile items from being tossed into a truck and with making decisions on where to place things when unpacking.
While you may think that this is time-consuming, it's a very small investment to avoid the huge headache of running around your new location with large boxes of dishware from the bathroom to the kitchen.
Pack heavier items on the bottom of boxes.
What you want to do is make sure your boxes stay upright and that means lowering their centres of gravity.
The same box with heavy items on top versus at the bottom is a recipe for disaster. Lighter items need plenty of packing material but making sure they don't move a lot can be achieved by making the boxes layered.
The bottom layer containing heavier items will anchor the box and will prevent it from flipping or falling over once it's in a moving truck.
It might be tempting to put some items in a separate box but being flexible with your labelling can ensure that the cardboard boxes you use won't take a tumble from a slight breeze or have their underside break from excess weight.
Use plenty of packing materials.
Many moving tips will emphasize this and for good reason. You can't just wrap something with plastic wrap and toss it in a box.
If you want to save space, it's not a good idea to stick a lot of items together without things like packing paper (or bunched-up paper like old newspapers) or packing peanuts to reduce how often and how hard objects will collide with each other inside the box.
In concert with the previous point about making boxes stable, you want to create a plush environment for your household items. The cheap, but just as effective, moving tip is to use things like dish towels or even pyjamas to replace empty spaces with proper cushioning.
When it comes to packing tape, you can never have enough.
Once you're sure that your boxes are good to go, use enough packing tape along the box's openings but also add strengthening strips that create perpendicular patterns to consolidate the structural integrity of weak points.
Just remember you will have to open that box later.
You can find used boxes easily, even your local liquor store should have some unused boxes that you can use for packing and moving fragile items.
They come in all sizes and sometimes with some simple structures that prevent the bottles from moving too much that you can use. Just pad the outer walls with paper towels to cushion your valuables and you have a compartmentalized box for free!
Keep a list of important phone numbers and addresses handy.
You might protest that you have all of that on your phone but, brace yourselves for this shocking plot twist, phones run out of batteries, fall, get packed by mistake.
When you're moving to a new house a lot of things can go wrong. A stress-free move is a unicorn but having critical information at your fingertips can be a lifesaver. No need to sift through emails or haphazard Google searches, if you have a simple printout and a link to a pdf with all the important information on your phone's home screen then it can make things a lot easier for everyone involved.
Take care when moving furniture.
This includes couches, cabinets & bookcases, dressers, entertainment centers and any other heavy large object. Remember to always lift from underneath the piece to help you prevent dropping or injuring yourself. If a piece is too heavy for you to safely pick up and move on your own, DO NOT attempt it. You don't want a visit to the ER on the way to the storage facilities.
If you're not hiring professional movers, then bribing friends and family with drinks and pizza will do the trick.
It's not just about being able to lift heavy things, it's about maneuvering them through complicated angles without leaving dents and scratches on the furniture or the walls themselves.
If you are hiring professionals through moving companies then ask how you can best prepare for their visit. If you have dresser drawers that slide open easily then tape them up and make sure to clear up unnecessary items on and around the piece of furniture. Non-essential power strips or cables of any kind should be removed throughout the path of the movers.
What to do with unwanted items.
When you're moving into a new environment, you should not bring even a single box of items you could have left behind.
Before moving day, grab storage bins and dedicate one to things that belong in garbage bags and another one to items that can be donated. You're going to be paying for professional movers (or pizza for your friends) and it's best to make sure that enough money is spent wisely rather than rashly.
Sometimes, moving services will have extra services to help you dispose of things you no longer want.
You can also bring gently used items to thrift stores or local charities. Think of what around you is a bit easier to part with and that can help people going through a tough time.
Moving house items is a chance to start over and an opportunity to try new things so selling flat-screen TVs makes sense if you're planning on cutting down on your screen time (or planning to buy a bigger one).
Bonus tip.
Pack an overnight bag with clothing essentials, a shampoo bottle, cleaning supplies, and toilet paper. If something goes wrong when packing and moving, you still want to be able to take a quick shower and change your clothes if a crisis takes some time to resolve.
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