Today is general tips for moving!
- Packing:
- I didn't know where I wanted a lot of my decor for the new house so I labeled it all to go to the same spot. Once it got there I could decide where it should go from there.
- Most of our paperwork got packed up but I kept out the important thing. The things I would need right before, during, and after closing. I had my old and new loan documents, our passports/birth certificates/ss cards, extra pens and paper, and child proofing items in there. The child proofing things were collected as we emptied out drawers and were kept there so that we could put them on the outlets and cabinets as soon as we got to the new house. This bag was in addition to the bag I talked about on Monday with moving supplies in it.
- Don't pack boxes too heavy. It's really easy to just take all of your books and put them in the same box. Be careful how many books you put in the box. It could make the box break or you could hurt the back of the person carrying it!
- Don't take your clothes off the hanger! That takes forever to do and forever to put back on the hangers. You can get clothes hanging boxes or the much easier and less expensive option is to get trash bags and tear a hole in the center of the bottom and put them over your clothes with the crook of the hanger out of the hole. Stuff the parts that don't fit into the bottom and pull the draw string closed. Tape the hangers together.
- Pack your sheets on top so you can make your bed first when you get there.
- I had a schedule for when I would pack everything up. The last minute items such as food, dishes, clothing, toiletries all need to be packed and can't be done at the same time since that is a whole lot of stuff. I had a plan for each day. When I packed my toiletries I had travel ones to get us through moving. When I packed our dishes I had purchased a huge thing of styrafoam plates. I scheduled out our meals and only kept out the food we needed. I made a schedule of all of this so I could make sure it all got done in time.
- Have an on going box to go to charity. I had multiple bags and they all went at once.
- Labeling boxes
- Label EVERYTHING. Use masking tape to label furniture, big bins, and other large items. My goal was to have the only question people ask me on moving day was "What can I do next?"
- On Monday I talked about the labels I used. So when I was at our old house I drew a rough layout map of our new house and numbered each room. I taped this map next to the door the stuff would be coming through on moving in day. Each box had a number on yellow tape, blue tape if it was heavy, red tape if it was fragile, and an orange X if it needed to be last one on first one off. The label was placed so it could be seen from the top or side.
- Moving your stuff
- Who doesn't love free labor? We asked for help at church and got the teenage boys as well as quite a few other men and women to help us. That morning I didn't know how we would get everything done but two amazing people from our church showed up. We couldn't have done it without them!
- We told all of the people that were coming to help that we were going to have food at certain times. We had $5 pizza on moving out day and subs on moving in day. Both were super easy to set out and clean up.
- At our final walk through I brought a tape measure. I measured where our furniture would fit so I was sure where I wanted it while I still had muscle there to move it. No couches in the middle of the living room for me!
- I'm a firm believer that unless a child can help out a lot (ie a teenager) they should be somewhere else during moving. My sister-in-law and her family graciously watched PB for two days while we moved. It was the longest I had ever been away from her and it was really hard but it helped out so much no to have to worry about nap times and where she could safely play.
- Saving Money
- For our moving truck I used a promo code I found on a discount site. I compared three different companies and we got a great price.
- When you change your address you will get great coupons in the packet! My favorites are the ones to home improvements stores. Also look on their websites for moving incentives and coupons.
- Once you get there
- Set up your beds first! That way you can fall into them when you get too exhausted to move anything else
- For safety you should rekey your house. We were worried about the price of new locks and door knobs and we're DIYers so we found a tutorial online and changed the pins inside of our existing locks with a kit we bought on Amazon. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars we spent $7. That's a good exchange!
Phew! I think that's about all I have until tomorrow! Do you have any tips for moving?
Enjoy this post?! Here are four others in the series:
Day 2- Pinterest Ideas I tried out
Day 4- Preparing Your House for Showings
Day 5- Leaving Behind Your Home and Neighbors
