As I was driving around town the other day it was evident that Moving Season is in full swing! All of the local college students have wrapped up the school year and are in the process of moving out for the summer. Which means that in the coming days/weeks, an influx of summer interns will be descending on DC. Witnessing the abundance of movers and moving trucks in DC made me take a moment to reflect on my own move last Spring. For today's post, I have compiled a list of my favorite moving tips and advice based on my experience with last year's big move. These tips range from big picture to small details, but all have proven to extremely helpful and are definitely tips that I will be using for our next move.
Children & Pets
Around the time we closed on our house, I had discovered Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook (a book that I absolutely LOVE-see this post). Martha's Homekeeping Handbook is a wealth of information regarding all aspects of the home, including moving! One great tip she shared was with regard to pets, and I think it also applies to children. On the day of the move, make arrangements for your pet or child to spend the day at a day care, friend or family member's house. Watching their home be moved can be traumatic for an animal and/or child, so it's beneficial to shield them from witnessing the actual moving of furniture. In addition, it's also dangerous to have a pet and/or child present when heavy furniture and boxes are being moved out of a home. Keeping your children and/or pets away from the action on moving day will help to ensure that they are kept safe and your move runs as smoothly as possible.
Wall Hanging Hooks
When preparing to transport all of our wall hangings and paintings, I pulled everything off the walls and started to create a large ziplock bag of all picture hanging hooks. I realized that I was going to have a serious dilemma once we got to the new house, because the hooks that I had started to pile supported different weights for specific paintings. In an effort to avoid having to sift through a pile of wall hooks in order to hang paintings in the new house, I placed the wall hook that corresponded to a particular painting in a snack size ziplock bag and then used packing tape to secure the ziplock bag to the hanging wire behind each painting. As a result of this packing tip, hanging artwork in the new house was a breeze and required a fraction of the time to complete.
The Week Before...
Have everything packed and ready to go one week prior to the official move date. This was another Martha tip that I absolutely loved from her Homekeeping Handbook. Reason being, the amount of loose ends that will undoubtedly emerge on the day of the move is sizable. Simple and seemingly insignificant items like spare hangers, paper products or door hooks that you want to take with you to the new house, all require time and space to move. The more you can do ahead of time, the easier your move will be (especially on the official moving day).
If you don't want an item to break, move it yourself
We ended up having a total of zero houseware casualties during the move. Why? Because anything that we considered fragile or irreplaceable, we moved ourselves. We opted to move everything over in phases using 30 gallon plastic storage bins. The bins were a tremendous help when moving over a variety of our belongings because they are sturdy, have handles for easy transport and are now used for storage in our attic. Plastic Storage Bins are a great cost saving idea when purchasing moving supplies and very effective for moving delicate keepsakes.
Coupons
A well known checklist item when moving is to have your mail forwarded through the United States Postal Service. While I was taking care of this checklist item on their official website, I was prompted to select catalogues that would be of interest to me. Of course I clicked on everything! A few weeks later, I received a welcome package at our new address from USPS that was filled with coupons from fabulous stores like Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Target, etc. Talk about an unexpected, much needed and very appreciated surprise!
If you have moved before, you are most likely aware that there are so many little house items to buy right off the bat (ex. Shower Curtain Rod, Kitchen Trash Can, Paper Towel Holder, etc.) In addition, more often than not, certain furniture pieces that may have worked in your former house do not fit to the appropriate scale of your new house and you are in need of new furniture. Having all of these coupons, courtesy of the USPS is a big help in off-setting all of those initial expenses. In sum, not only do I highly recommend forwarding your mail through the USPS website, but I would also strongly encourage you to check all of the catalogue box options. The benefits you will reap are well worth the extra step of signing up for additional catalogues.
When it comes to moving, the resources available to help you through this process are endless. These 5 tips were merely some of my most helpful/less obvious lessons learned from my own experience. If you have any additional questions regarding moving, please feel free to contact me. I also would love to hear from you if there are any tips/strategies that you have found to be particularly helpful during the moving process. Whether it's a comprehensive moving checklist or a singular tip, when it comes to moving, more information ahead of time definitely contributes to a seamless move.
