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How do you pack to move?

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AmberWaves

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We recently signed a lease on a fab 2 bedroom/ 2 bathroom apartment, which luckily is two minutes away from our current location (although those two minutes make a difference!), and I''ve never really moved before.

Help me figure out how to move! What do you do? What items to you pack first? Which last? How do you pack them? We have a month before we need to be out of here, but have the keys to the new place already, so we can take a bit of time.

Thanks in advance!
 

April20

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I''ve moved too many times!

I start by packing the things I know I won''t be using or needing until I move. Things like nick-nacks, books, those dishes you only bring out for company etc. For me, the key is having a place carved out to put the boxes as you pack them that won''t be in your way in the meantime. If you have a spare room, corner, garage, etc, that would be best. That last thing you want to do is have boxes everywhere and be tripping over them.

The last thing I pack is the cocktail shaker and a martini glass. You may laugh, but by the time I am ready to move I need that sucker!
 

AmberWaves

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Thanks April! I totally believe it about the martini- I need one now just thinking about having to sort everything!
 

Tacori E-ring

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We use those big plastic tubs. At first I thought it was silly (idea was from DH''s family b/c that is how they always moved) but after three moves together it is so smart! We re-use them and use them to store off season stuff. Plus so much easier to carry than boxes. Stack when you aren''t using them. I pack by room and always leave out a set of sheets, pillows, a roll of TP, tooth brushes and other essentials in an easy to access bag. That way if at the end of the move you are too tired to unpack at least you have what you need to get through the night.
 

AmberWaves

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Oooh, Tacori, those tubs are a great idea. We use them to store our christmas stuff, too, so it makes sense! Thanks!
 

applequeen

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I've moved more times than I care to remember and this is the process I use for in-town/ local moves.

I also use storage tubs but I only get 10 or so of them and reuse them during the entire move. My system is to pack up a room move it to the new place and immediately unpack it. For example...pack up the kitchen (pots, pans, dishes, etc.) and take it and unpack it.... take storage containers back and continue with the next room.

Once all the little stuff has been moved it's easy to move the furniture/ big items last.

What I like about this system is that when you get to the new place you're practically moved in and can just relax... you also don't end up with a ton of boxes to dispose of or lot's of boxes that never get unpacked.

This may seem like it would take longer but in my experience it's actually not... you gotta unpack sometime and it's nice to see progress being made in both places.

ETA.... The best thing I've found when starting to feel overwhelmed by the thought of the move is to just get in there are start boxing stuff up...once you see progress it goes pretty fast.
 

Clairitek

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I second the big tubs idea! Thats how I packed my things for college every time I moved around (which was many many times in those 4 years).

I''ve moved 5 times in the last 3 1/2 years so I feel that I''ve become an expert! I find it helps to number the boxes or at least label them and do your best to pack by room. I prefer to number them and then I keep a little log of whats in each box in as much detaila as possible so if I need something before I can properly unpack I don''t have to tear through 6 boxed to find what I''m looking for.

I found the numbering to also be helpful while in the actualy throes of moving in. This way you can just say "OK... you have box 2,4,8,12? 2 goes in the bedorom, 4 and 8 in the dining room, 12 in the kitchen"

Hope this helps! Congrats on getting the apartment.

Oh yes.. one last piece of advice. The last 5 times I''ve moved I''ve also used a bunch of liquor store boxes for my smaller, heavy stuff along with the tubs for big lighter items and clothes. They are small so you can''t overpack them to the point of not being able to lift them. They stack nicely in a car or van or truck.

Best of all...

They are free!!
 

joflier

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I like to make lots of labels for the outside of boxes/bins, so that later whenever I do get around to unpacking, I know exactly what''s in each box. (2 years later, I still have some full boxes, and those labels come in handy, lol)
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AmberWaves

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GREAT tips everyone! I've got no experience, just slowly started living with my boyfriend (now DH)after a year. I'm pretty sure he was aware of it.
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Tacori E-ring

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Since you have time I would pack and unpack your kitchen BEFORE the move. You will be glad you did b/c it is so time consuming. That is what we did when we moved houses. Just leave the bare essentials at your old place.
 

zhuzhu

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Since you are only moving 2 minutes away, you could put all your soft items (towels, sheets and clothes) into clean big trash bags and just pile them onto the backseats of your car. This packing method will save you money on boxes/tapes and the trash bags are reusable after the move.
 

Clairitek

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Date: 2/20/2009 7:13:57 PM
Author: zhuzhu
Since you are only moving 2 minutes away, you could put all your soft items (towels, sheets and clothes) into clean big trash bags and just pile them onto the backseats of your car. This packing method will save you money on boxes/tapes and the trash bags are reusable after the move.

I forgot to mention this in my first post on this thread. I''ve done this for my last two moves because they were fairly local. Definitely a good space saving trick too because they can be squished into the small spaces between boxes and stuff.
 

monarch64

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Label, label, label. Keep a list of the contents of each carton taped to the outside (like covered in clear tape so nothing gets torn off), number it, mark what room it should go in, and have a duplicate copy in a folder or something. Pack the most-used kitchen and bedding items last. Mark all the boxes with breakable items "fragile" in big fat red letters and make sure to use lots of packing material. Don''t pack so many items in one carton that it''s too heavy to transport easily. Buy some of those things they make for putting under furniture to make it slide across floor surfaces.
Bungee cords usually come in handy during moves.
Box cutters are your friend.
Bring cleaning supplies to the new abode first and do a thorough (or pay someone else to do it) cleaning first. Have a clerical figure of your choice bless it first if that sort of thing is important to you. Just kidding. Or not.

Clean the vacuum and shower curtains, etc. before moving it into your nice clean new home. Or buy new ones.
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I like to start off fresh, can you tell?

Congrats on the new digs--so happy for you!
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MichelleCarmen

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I''m a really bad procrastinator and always wait ''till the last minute to pack. For boxes, I always get them at the liquor store because I''m living fairly close into the city, there are about 7 nearby me, and because the boxes there are FREE!

Definatetly, as Monarch said, labeling is key. Last time I moved, I used printer labels and placed each one on the upper left-hand corner of the box, used a highlighter to mark the room the box was to be placed in, and moving everything was a sinch. I always move the fragile boxes *myself*. I put them in a seperate spot and move them into my car rather into a truck.
 

AmberWaves

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Thank you all again! These tips are coming in so handy, especially when DH just said, "I forgot you''ve never had to move! Just do everything I say and it''ll be fine."
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That''s exactly what I was trying to avoid!
 

sunkist

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Amber, congrats on finding a new place! But boy am I a bad person to ask about moving. Most of the times I moved was during college and I just made a few trips back and forth stuffing my car full to the brim, shoving things in boxes if I had them
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Not the best way!

All these suggestions look much better
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Good luck and have fun.
 

April20

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Our last two moves have been "in town" moves and only about 3 miles away each time. I used trash bags for everything soft. I also used towels to wrap my larger breakables. I hate the residue left from newspaper and on a local move, it's so much easier to cushion with towels.

I love the tub idea. That never occured to me, but we have a collection of boxes we keep from move to move. They're already labeled, so I make sure the same things go back in them each time.
 

purrfectpear

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All of the above is good advice, but I adhere to the following.

Forget friends, and DIY, hire movers. My time and my back are worth more than $55 an hour
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I pack my own stuff, but I let others do the moving.
 

April20

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Date: 2/21/2009 2:09:06 PM
Author: purrfectpear
All of the above is good advice, but I adhere to the following.

Forget friends, and DIY, hire movers. My time and my back are worth more than $55 an hour
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I pack my own stuff, but I let others do the moving.
I could not agree with this more. I tried to convince DH to hire movers this last time. We had just moved 5 months prior into temporary housing into a 2nd floor loft apt, no elevator. I BEGGED him to hire movers to move us back out. He didn't want to. It took twice as long and was twice as much work than if we had just hired movers. I told him NEVER AGAIN would we do this ourselves.
 

oobiecoo

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Have a "Moving Party"! Invite friends to help... barbeque or order pizza and have drinks. DH and I have helped his sis and he has helped his boss. Free food was involved each time hehe. People don''t mind helping out their friends!

Another thing.. if you are renting a moving truck, be SMART about how you pack things into it. Think of it as a game of Tetris and try to pack things very tightly so nothing slides.
 

MichelleCarmen

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Date: 2/21/2009 2:09:06 PM
Author: purrfectpear
All of the above is good advice, but I adhere to the following.

Forget friends, and DIY, hire movers. My time and my back are worth more than $55 an hour
2.gif


I pack my own stuff, but I let others do the moving.
We always pack our stuff too AND move it all. We''ve had so-so luck with friends/family. My inlaws are wonderful and always help, but with everyone else, half never show up or show up late. We always buy pizza and all that, but people are still flakey.
 

Elmorton

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I started a thread similar to this when we moved a year ago. Here it is: https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/moving-tips.71316/

Everyone gave us GREAT tips, and I feel like DH and I are moving pros now (3 moves in 1.5 years!)

The two tips that I LOVE are 1) Tacori''s advice about kitchen first. It''s daunting daunting daunting, but so incredibly worth it. On our first move, I was packing up the kitchen at 2am the night before and still packing when the moving truck showed up and we were starting to load. I actually LISTENED to the good advice and made sure the kitchen was unpacked first that time :) 2) Color code everything with post-its, so boxes get deposited in the right rooms. That is such a life saver (we made a big poster that explained which post-it coordinated with each room) when others are helping you, and it makes unpacking so, so easy.

The other thing that I''ve been doing since college is to use garbage bags for my closet stuff - bag from the bottom and cinch the drawstring around the hanger necks (like a garment bag). You can hang everything in the closet right away and just cut away the bags.

ALSO - UHaul has started a thing where people can return boxes and anyone can reuse them for free. Of course, DH and I saw that when we were returning the truck...

OH! And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE copy paper boxes. Get your hands on as many as possible, from anyone who works with an often used xerox machine.
 

snowflakeluvr

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good luck! we just moved in august but both our moves have been corporate so we were packed and moved by movers...our first move though went soo smoothly, i had been purging and organizing all along. this second move last august was much tougher-first move-had 2 kids, last move, we have 5 kids now just sooo much more STUFF.

my suggestion is to start pitching and purging what you don''t need/want any longer. this move, i didn''t have as much time so we have a basement filled with junk that never should have made the move with us...

you''ll get there, and it will all be ok, but it is stressful while you''re in it. drink and pack as often as you can...
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ChinaCat

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Amber-

No tips, everyone has already mentioned some great ones.

Just wanted to say congrats on finding a new place!!!!!
 

AmberWaves

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Many many thanks everyone! I''m totally on a packing kick, because the more I sift through, the more I get rid of, I''m really starting to get ruthless, I''m kind of proud! So far I''ve got about 6 boxes packed- the big honkin'' boxes, and some things are already moved! All the big stuff remains, though.
 
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