No matter how many times you’ve shifted your home, the next time is sure to be tedious and back breaking. Just the enormity of the fact that you are moving your entire existence somewhere else might weaken your spirits or make you weak in the knees. But sooner or later, you’ll have to face it. You have to make that move and stalling isn’t going to get you anywhere. So, buck up, and make sure that you keep these things in mind when you start the journey of packing and moving.
Clean your house
The one thing that people always make the mistake of is thinking that since you are leaving your home, you shouldn’t be spending your energy on cleaning up. But in fact, it’s the opposite. The first step to packing and moving is to clean the entire house. This will give you an opportunity to declutter and get rid of anything that you don’t want to carry. Keeping things organized where they also help in packing things in a much faster and cleaner way. This will not only remove excess items but will also reacquaint you with all the things that you have and need to pack. You can get a fair estimate of the number of boxes that you require. Clean up, get rid of clutter and move on to the next step.
Buy the packing materials
Once you know how many things you need to take away, you can buy the boxes. Remember not to buy similar boxes. Buy boxes of different sizes, small, medium and large. Buy lots of tape, labels, colored paper and sharpies. Bubble wrap and burlap sacks too can be of great help. Remember to also use old newspapers as fillers to ensure that things that can get ruined or out of shape are well taken care of.
One “go-to” box
You don’t usually open everything all at once. This is why the best thing to do is create one main go to box with you bare minimum essentials that you can sustain you till your entire house has been unpacked. This box should contain:
- A few pots
- A pan
- Spoons
- Plates
- Bowls
- Napkins
- Hand wash
- Soap
- Other essential toiletries
- A few pairs of clothes
- Pillows
- Curtains
This box will be the temporary home box that will let you survive for a couple of days or as much time as you take to open your other items and set them up.
Take it from the top
Start with one room at a time. Clear your lofts and attics first, and then move on to your bedrooms, then your living room and finally your kitchen. This will allow you to keep sleeping in your rooms and keep cooking your meals or your children’s meals until as long as possible. From an organization point of view as well, it is important to do the less important things first and the more important things later. You will remember how you packed the kitchen best so that you can open and arrange it the first, for best results.
Colors are your best friends
Colors code the boxes. You can buy boxes with different color markers on them or just paste colored papers on them that will be an instant indication of what the box holds. For example, keep you bedrooms boxes pink, your drawing room boxes green, you kitchen boxes red, your kid’s room boxes yellow and your bathroom boxes blue.
Make an index
The biggest mistake that one makes is making a list of all items and pasting them directly on the boxes. Do not do that. Number the boxes and keep an adjoining list which states which number corresponds to which items. Say there’s a box with a red paper on it marked no.
1. This automatically tells you this is a box from the kitchen because of its color. Now, take a diary and list everything that you have put in ox no.
2. Do not attach this list on top of the box. You don’t want people to know what all you’ve put in that box. Keep a list of it with yourself and hand over a detailed list of it to the manager of the moving company.
Try using an on demand moving app
Use an app for moving. There are many on demand moving apps available in the market. They are easy to use and have details that even you didn’t think of. These apps mostly work just like an Uber for moving stuff. Log onto the app, choose the size of household that you have, the estimated number of boxes and get a list of all the movers that are willing to transport things for you in the specified addresses. You will also get the rates that each mover has specified so that you can order by comparing which one suits you the best.
