Grasshopper New Media Presents...

A move is like childbirth. While you’re going through the pain of it you say you’re never going to do it again but how soon you forget and start making plans for another one.

I helped some friends move last week and it brought back bad memories from my childhood right on up to last year when we moved into our new home. From birth to 17 years of age my Mother moved us 13 times. I moved many times as a young adult and then my husband and I have moved 4 times during our marriage. This last time was the worst, of course, because we had the most junk and I am never moving again I tell you!

All those moves have taught me a few things and although I never got it right, that doesn’t mean you can’t.

The best way for you to be prepared is to start now and yes, I’m talking to you.
All of you. Even if you have no plans of moving in the near or far future, start right now by getting your home and life organized so that when the time comes for you to pack up and re-locate you will have to move only the things that you love and use. The rest of the junk cluttering up your life at this point will be long gone by then.

Do not wait until the movers show up on your doorstep before you start packing. Not even the last room. Not even the last drawer. Have it all done. You get to a certain point when you’re packing where you think, “Look at that. I’m almost done.” I want you to know right now that when you start telling yourself that, you are not almost done. You have just begun. What you really meant to say is that you are done packing up all the easy (obvious) things and now it’s time to get started on the hard stuff which may not seem like as much but it will take ten times longer to box up.

Ask for help.
Be careful not to let your spouse see how strong you are or instead of asking friends and family for help he will make you help him load and unload every single piece of furniture you own. Even the pieces that are so heavy it took a forklift to get it off the truck when it was delivered to your home in the first place. Crying and begging will not change his mind. All I can say is you had better own a nice pair of leather work gloves so you don’t chip your manicure.

Do not pack your dishes in paper bags because you have run out of boxes.
Even if you are deliriously tired and it seems easier than going to the store for more boxes, it is never a good idea. The first thing you must do once you decide to move (after you have a garage sale to get rid of half your junk, that is) is to start collecting boxes of every shape and size. Now I’m going to tell you where to get the perfect moving boxes for free.

Speak to the manager of the meat department in your local grocery store and ask them to save their boxes for you. You’ll probably have to go pick them up every day but it will be worth it. They are the perfect size for packing and lifting and they also have handles! I get chills just thinking about how awesome that is. Of course you still want a variety of boxes for larger decorative items but the meat boxes work great for packing smaller items like clothes and toys. Raise your hand if you didn’t know that liquor boxes are the best thing for heavy items such as dishes and books. Well now you do.

Why not box up your furniture as well?
I had several pieces of furniture that I did not want damaged so I took apart large boxes and pieced them together with lots of tape to protect those things. It works better for small furniture, like end tables and lamps, that are easy to move but I also had to wrap up a mirrored hall tree this way and it was worth the time I took to do it.

This also works great for artwork or anything flat. Undo the bottom of the box and lay the whole thing flat. Slip a painting, wrapped in a towel or blanket, inside it, tape up the top and bottom and its ready to go.

Label everything.
And I don’t mean with labels like “Junk” and “More Junk”. “Bathroom Junk” and “Laundry Room Junk” would be much more appropriate but I’m sure you already knew that. If you want to go so far as to color code the boxes and type up lists of all the contents then you should not be reading my articles. Please do not ever show your IP around here again. I use a black marker to make a general list of the contents and the room it belongs in right on the box.

For more information on organizing a move here are some people who actually know what they’re talking about.

Life Organizers
1/2 Price Movers
Organize Tips
That Military House

And if you need help moving, don’t call me because I’m still trying to get myself organized for my next move. Into a nursing home when I’m 85. I’m having a hard time figuring out if I’m going to have room for my industrial sewing machine collection or if I should just get rid of it now. What do you think?

[tags]home, house, moving, packing, organization, organized, tips[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by the author, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved