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As I constantly remind my husband, I can't resist a challenge. Maybe that's why I have never shied away from moving into a new house (think of the nesting!) or a completely new region of the country. Goodbye Louisiana humidity, hello dry Arizona heat. Goodbye oppressive heat, hello Minnesota snow at 40 below!
Perhaps it is also this open arms welcome of challenges that has allowed me to make so many moving mistakes. Well, what's the point of making mistakes if I can't share them and allow you (and me) to learn from them? As we consider moving yet again (just in town this time!), I've been thinking about what would make this the smoothest experience yet.
Here are 5 things I'm going to do differently this time:
1) Start Packing Early
I feel like I know this but I always seem to forget: packing takes SO much more time than I think, especially when only one of us is really good at deadlines and packing. Learn from me: the MOMENT you know you are going to move, start packing. Start hoarding boxes and bubble wrap and tissue. Collect pizza coupons and cases of beer to give your friends to encourage them to come over for a packing party.
Better yet, do what I'm doing and consider hiring professionals to pack for you. This eliminates the hassle of finding all the material, spare moments to pack between working hours, and times your friends can come over. I'm imagining not having to live out of boxes for the next month as a team of pros whisk in and expertly wrap my china, pack my books, and label my boxes with something more sensible than "stuff" and "more stuff." The number one company I'm considering to handle everything from my antiques to my shiny new craft supplies is a company of movers near Ham Lake, MN, the aptly named Relief Moving Company here in the Blaine/Minneapolis area. Heck, they'll even unpack for me! I'm delighted they offer free quotes because passing that responsibility to pros can be a lot more reasonable than you would think.
2) Pack Right
If I decide to handle the packing, I better start looking for different size boxes so I can pack things right. I don't want anything to shift. Even just going across town can do permanent damage to my beloved items. I'll need to make sure each box is packed fully. I don't have to fil every box with bubble wrap. I'll use towels, sheets, sewing fabric, or those 462 skeins of yarn I've been carefully concealing all over the house.
But that's not enough. I have to be careful to not overpack a box. The very first time we moved, I didn't have many boxes so ended up using huge, long banker-style boxes to pack books. They didn't seem that heavy when I was only moving one at a time. But think of moving day when you are moving box after box. Feathers become heavy at that point. I STILL hear about that packing mistake from my patient friends. Pros wouldn't have made that mistake. Just sayin'.
Also, if you have any boxes that are incredibly important (say spare cans of dog food), be sure to pick a bright tape to wrap around that box so you can find it in the pile pretty quickly. While we did have some important spares that we carried in the car, it wasn't long before we were scrambling through every box trying to find necessities that had been unloaded in a pile of unrelated boxes.
3) Make the best lists
For the next move, I'm going to make all the lists: utilities I have to turn on and off, closing checklists, companies and agencies that need an address change. I always seem to forget a few and then have to hope for the best as my favorite magazines are sent to my last address. Well not this time. I'm going to make sure everything is up and running when we get to our new home!
4) Just Go Pro, But Clearly Communicate
Let's be honest, I'm going pro no matter what. I have gone the routes of friends loading and unloading moving trucks, pros loading moving trucks, friends driving moving trucks, the whole gamut. I can't put my body or the body of my friends through that anymore. Not only is it the most annoying game of Tetris, but items get damaged and there's no recourse. With professionals, they handle this all the time! They know the safest ways to pack, wrap, and lift my (heavy) belongings. I want my stuff to arrive intact. Plus, by the time you factor in truck rental, gas, hotels, food, and plan tickets back (if it's a long haul), it ends up costing the same or more. Going pro is just good sense.
But make sure they know what they are signing up for. Reach out to the company like Relief Moving Company and make sure they come see what you have (hey, free estimate!). During my last cross-country move, I arranged for a company to unload sight unseen. While I felt I'd communicated clearly, let's just say it ended with them having to leave for another job before this one was completed. Guess who was left unloading the truck! And we STILL had to put together the bed after that! What a terrible, exhausting day!
5. Feel Free To Hire Movers Again
Remember the horrible story I literally just told you about having to unload the rest of the truck? I might have been able to avoid that if I'd just been a bit more chill about having things land in whatever room. Sure: in a perfect world, all the living room things end up in the living room, kitchen in kitchen, etc. But that may not be feasible for any number of reasons. It may not even be logical if I'm not sure what purpose each room will serve. When I sort out my next move, I'll work with the company to determine if I can hire just labor for a few hours to organize my belongings once I know which end is up. Yet another reason to be excited about Relief Moving Company: I know they provide this service as well, making it truly an all-in-one solution!
I hope you've learned some lessons from me. My DIY spirit has made way too many big days way harder (and more expensive) than they needed to be. I don't do my own electrical work; why am I being so hard-headed about this?
Don’t forget to save this post for your next move! Or subtly share it with your friend who always choose the hottest or coldest day of the year to move into a 4 story walk up!