Moving: It’s a bittersweet time full of boxes, bubble wrap, and new beginnings! While it is exciting to start fresh, it is never exciting to pack, clean, and donate a bunch of old stuff you forget you had. Here are some tips, tricks, and hacks to make the moving process a little easier.
First Night Bag
You’ve officially moved! Your new place is filled to the ceiling with taped up boxes. It’s finally time for bed, but where is your toothpaste? Where’s your hairbrush? Avoid opening every single box by packing a “first night bag”. Use any old backpack and pack it with everything you might need for the next 24 hours: fresh clothes, shampoo, and conditioner, medications, toothbrush and toothpaste, hair gel, etc. Make sure everyone in your family has one too.
Start Fresh
Many people see moving as an opportunity to create new experiences and adventures. We see it as an opportunity to get rid of all the stuff you’ve been hoarding since middle school… and also for new experiences and all that! Use moving as an excuse to donate clothes you haven’t worn for a while, books you’ll never read again, those weird dishes your mom got you for Christmas in 2015, or anything else that you haven’t used in the past year or two. By donating your old possessions, you are giving yourself a clean slate and giving someone else a chance to put your donated items to good use! Read our Guide to Decluttering to learn how you can get rid of unused junk.
Stay Fresh
To feel fresh in your place, clean everything you can before the big items are moved in. Before moving in any furniture try to sweep, mop, and vacuum all floors and rugs. Or if you can afford it, get the carpets professionally cleaned. Clean out your fridge, microwave, washer, and dryer.
It’s gross to think of how many germs live in someone’s home, you don’t want their leftover bacteria. Clean your new house! This can become a time-consuming task, but it will be so worth it. After all the heavy moving is done you won’t want to clean, you’ll want to relax! And relaxing in a giant mess is hard to do.
If possible, it is best to put down new flooring and paint before moving in your large items. You’ll want lots of room if you are painting large walls or putting up wallpaper. Having large pieces of furniture in the way can definitely make installing flooring a bit more difficult or sometimes impossible.
Preventing Breaks
A mistake many first-time movers make is not wrapping their fragile items like glass vases, dinnerware, and picture frames well enough. Moving is stressful enough, you don’t want to get to your destination only to find your boxes full of shattered glass.
To keep your cups from breaking, use clean socks to cover them. No need for paper! Place a small stack of coffee filters between each bowl/plate and then stack. The coffee filters will keep the plates from touching each other and prevent chipping. You can also put styrofoam plates in between your glass plates if you don’t have coffee filters.
Bubble wrap is awesome. It protects your possessions and it’s fun to pop. Use it to wrap other small valuables. But if you run out of bubble wrap, fill a gallon size Ziploc bag with air, seal it, place your valuables in the middle, and cover with another air-filled bag.
Wrap large glass picture frames or mirrors in blankets. They will stay safe and that’s one less blanket you have to pack!
Clothing
Place folded clothes into a large garbage bag then vacuum out all the air. It will keep your clothes tight and folded and it saves space!Â
If you have to pack your shoes with your clothes, wrap a shower cap over the bottoms to avoid spreading the dirt and germs from your shoes to your clothes.
Keep your clothes hung so they stay organized and wrinkle-free. Take a large garbage bag, pull it over the clothes hanging in your closet (the garbage bag opening should be around the top of the hangers), and tie the pull tabs around the hook part of the hanger.
Miscellaneous Items
Moving books can give anyone a headache. They are big, heavy, and always rip the bottom of your boxes. Use a suitcase to move your books! You can pack more in there, they will be easier to transport, and you won’t have to deal with a busted box.
Broken makeup is not only a huge inconvenience, but it’s also a huge mess. To avoid shattering your pressed powders, place a cotton ball between the top of the makeup and the inside of the lid. It’ll prevent breaking.
To ensure all your boxes get to the right place, create a color code. Use a specific color of tape on boxes for different rooms; for example, use only green tape on the boxes that belong in the master bedroom and use only purple tape for the boxes that belong in the kitchen.Â
When packing wires and cords, wrap some tape around the middle and write on the tape what the cord does; for example, HDMI 1, Xbox Input cord.
Shrinkwrap your cutlery organizer. Instead of taking out every utensil and packing them individually, just pack them all together. This will help you avoid losing utensils.
Good luck with your move and safe travels!