Tips to simplify your move
It’s moving season!
We’re busy helping clients prepare their homes for sale, pre-packing, packing and unpacking their new homes! We want to share some of our pro tips that may be helpful to you if you are going it alone.
The first thing to do is pre-pack before putting your home on the market. Basically, this means packing up items that keep a home from looking their best for the photographer. It’s about the visuals when potential buyers are looking online. Homes show better when closets and cabinets are not cramped. Once the home is on the market you can start to sort and pack up the off-season clothes and decor, photos, memorabilia, and other items that are rarely used.
Buy plenty of supplies! We like to use U-Haul.com. The nice thing is they offer free shipping for orders over $50 (which included most orders for moving supplies) and you can return any unused supplies when you’re done. There’s nothing worse than running out of supplies during a move.
Stop buying food ahead and minimize your pantry inventory so you don’t have a lot of perishables and food to move or throw away during your move. Limit the number of perishables you have to take with you; however, it is nice to have creamer for your coffee the first morning in your new home, so pack a cooler with the remaining food from your refrigerator at the last minute.
Movers charge by weight, which means moving can be expensive. Don’t move unwanted and unneeded items. Get rid of everything you don’t need. One motivator is to schedule weekly donation pickups. This will ensure you have some things to put out regularly. We assist our clients in donating or selling their excess belongings using auction houses, house sale companies, local consignment stores, and donation centers. Every situation is different and it’s good to find the right resources (which we can do).
Consistent sized boxes are easiest to stack and move. We recommend not using a lot of odd sized boxes. Liquor store boxes are great for liquor, oils, and vinegar and books. We recommend using small and medium boxes for household goods and larger boxes for bedding and linens. The heavier items belong in small boxes so that can easily be moved. Have you ever tried to pick up a large box of books?
Five quick packing tips:
- Use packing paper rather than bubble wrap because it’s more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient.
- Pack things according to the room they will go to in at the new home rather than the room they came from. That way your movers can put them directly into the right room.
- Label all your boxes on two sides by numbering the boxes, identifying the room name, and general contents.
- Using things like colored masking tape or labels to identify each room by color with a corresponding chart that tells your movers where things go simplifies the process.
- If it’s a local move, we recommend you hand carry any high-value items rather than box them. If you can’t do that we box them in a box with a special code to not draw attention to them.
Create an “open first” box. This is usually what is left in the home the morning of your move. Usually, this box has your electronics chargers, toiletry items, medications, water, power bars, and clothing. Always remember not to pack your wallet, there are always odd last minute things that you need cash for, like tipping your movers!
If there are going to be a lot of boxes, or if boxes are going to multiple locations we recommend creating an inventory sheet for tracking purposes. It helps to know where every box is and where it’s going. It helps make locating something during the moving process go easier. We typically ask our movers to put the box numbers facing out to make it easy to locate a specific box. Yes, we have GREAT movers!
We hope some of these tips have value to you. Ensuring that your move goes smoothly takes practice and because of this, every home we have worked in has sold very quickly due to our process. If you are doing this on your own, keep in mind that it’s overwhelming and can be very emotional. If you need help, we are here to help you!