Moving to a new home can be both stressful and exciting. On one hand, you are starting a new adventure, be it across town or across the country. But, on the other hand, you have to pack up all your belongings and relocate them from Point A to Point B. So, how do you keep your items safe and secure, while keeping your sanity? Read on for some smart moving and packing tips.
Recently, the hubs and I sold our 3-level home in Akron, Ohio and moved to a one-level rental house 1100 miles away, near Tampa, Florida. We packed up all our belongings and vacated the house in under 30 days. While we may not have been the most organized packers in history, I did learn a few things – and hopefully sharing these tips will help your next move go a little smoother.
Start as early as possible.
Pack off-season and rarely used items first. If necessary, temporarily rent off-site storage. – this is especially helpful if you showing your home.
Purge, purge, purge!
Don’t pay to move anything you aren’t going to use or need. We filled a dumpster and a ‘junk’ truck, sold quite a bit of furniture, and donated carloads, but we still filled two 16′ PODS containers. FYI – we should have purges A LOT more than we did.
Bins or Boxes?
We started out packing in plastic bins, but they take up a lot of space. I spoke with a friend, who works for a professional moving company in another state, and they recommend boxes over bins because boxes are square, while most bins are tapered, and movers need to utilize every inch of space in a truck. Small boxes are used to fill gaps, keeping truck contents from shifting. Boxes are also less expensive, can be folded down to take up less space and can be recycled.
Uhaul offers a wide selection of boxes, including specialty sizes for flat-screens, electronics and odd-shaped items. We purchased other Uhaul products, such as tape, rope and packing paper, too. Their prices are reasonable and you can return unused products, with your receipt, of course.
I started collecting the boxes and packing material from orders I received months before our move. I also had leftover USPS Priority Mail boxes, from sending out items I’d sold online, which worked great for packing smaller items and void filling.
Protect Your Belongings
Soft textiles, such as towels and sweatshirts, make excellent padding and wrapping products. Using these items to wrap fragile items or pad inside boxes will save money on paper and bubble wrap.
I didn’t purchase special dish packs or glass dividers for packing boxes. I did use A LOT of packing paper, though. Everything made it from Ohio to Florida in one piece. The first box of plates I packed were wrapped individually and stacked horizontally, on top of one another. Then I read it was better to wrap each plate and pack vertically, which I did with my next box. All my plates, bowls, mugs and glasses made it 1100 miles, unscathed.
Moving blankets are your furniture’s best friends, otherwise pieces will get scratched when being maneuvered into the truck. As I stated above, movers utilize every square inch of space and pack things in tight, so scuffs, scratches and scrapes will, unfortunately, happen. In our experience with professional loaders/movers, items will not be insured if you use just any old blanket or sheet to cover your furniture – you must use quilted moving blankets. We purchased 2 dozen moving pads from Amazon.
Before filling your boxes with fragile items, crumple a bunch of packing paper to create a nest for your items in the bottom of the box, or line with something soft for padding.
When you have layers of items in a box, create a base for the next layer with wadded paper and/or cardboard from another box.
Pack Smarter, Not Harder
Do not overload boxes. Just because you can lift the weight doesn’t mean the box/bin will be can hold the weight.
Don’t leave empty space in boxes and bins – fill any void with socks, clothes, pillows, towels, paper, foam, other empty boxes, etc. to keep items firmly packed. Box lids should not “bend inward” when closed.
Whatever soft textiles you don’t use to cushion and wrap your belongings, stuff into large plastic bags. We used Husky contractor-grade for the durability. These stuffed bags work great as filler and padding in a moving truck. The bags can be reused once unpacked.
You can leave your clothes in drawers, remove the drawers to move the furniture base then replace the drawers. This is NOT recommended if the furniture is “flat-pack” (ex: Sauder and Ikea), as these pieces are generally not sturdy enough to move filled, or to be moved multiple times.
Pack books or other heavy items into rolling suitcases for easy movement.
Organization is Important
Label with room and contents, on the top and side(s)! You think you’re going to remember what you put where…but you won’t. Keep a master list. Make a special mark on boxes that you will want to unpack first – so they don’t get buried.
If you have to disassemble items, keep each items hardware it’s own Ziploc, then keep all those bags together in one place or attach to the item from which they came.
For electronics such a entertainment systems and computers/peripherals, take photos of your wiring hookups and label your wires.
Pack an “essentials” box or boxes – toilet paper, paper towels, shower curtain and hooks, towels and washcloths for each member of your family, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes/paste, coffee maker and coffee (!), dish soap and multi-purpose cleaner, disposable plates/utensils, snacks, pet foods and supplies, water, pens, paper, scissors, tape, box cutters, flashlights, garbage bags, toolkit, important documents, first aid kit, Rx, electronic chargers, extension cords.
A couple more suggestions…
If you think you have enough boxes, tape, paper, bubble wrap, etc. – buy more. You will, most likely, run out. We went through innumerable rolls of packing tape. As stated above, you can return unused Uhaul products for a refund.
If you hire movers or loaders, have refreshments for them. We bought cookies and stocked our fridge with water and Gatorade and invited them to grab whatever they wanted, whenever they were ready. A little goes a long way – Be kind to the people who are handling your belongings.
Final Thoughts
The biggest lesson I learned? The earlier you start and the less you have, the easier it will be be.
Our professionally packed PODS – loaded to the seams. You can see how the movers utilize every inch of the container.
Have you found any tricks that helped you pack for a move? Please, share your tips in the comments.
Excellent tips. We are hoping to move this year, so these will really come in handy. We are working on purging all of our stuff, even though we went through everything over the last two years, we are still finding stuff we need to get rid of that we don’t want to bring to our next home.