Tuesday's Tips~Packin' and a Movin' - Living Solutions blog

Ok…so here is Tuesday’s Tips on a Thursday! It’s been that kind of a week!

I recently received an article in the mail from my mom…Speaking of articles, does anyone else’s mom send them a zillion articles to read? At least once every week and a half I get an envelope addressed to me in my mom’s handwriting that is a bit cushy and I know it’s filled with all kinds of wisdom she has found in her pasts week’s reading. She claims her mother did the same thing to her, and I’m sure I’ll be sending my boys articles that I feel they must read when they are grown and on their own. Although it sometimes takes a while, I do get through all the articles she sends, and more often than not there is so very valuable or interesting information!

So back to the article she recently sent. Actually it was the website contents page torn from Real Simple magazine, (I subscribe and I love). It was about getting prepared for a move. At this point, I need all the help I can get with moving. Between staying busy with two little guys, working on Living Solutions design projects, coordinating our move and work that needs to be done before we move in finding renters for our current home, and just trying to keep my head above water, I haven’t gotten much done in the way of packing.

On the Real Simple website, there is endless useful information on moving tips, packing tips, etc. Some of the tips I’ll be using in the weeks to come…

~ Use the right size boxes.
Heavy items in small boxes, light items in bigger ones.

~ Put heavier items on the bottoms of boxes, lighter items on top.

~ If you’re moving yourself, pack the heavy boxes first to balance out the truck.

~ Don’t leave empty spaces in the boxes.
Boxes packed too loosely have the chance of not even getting moved by professional moves because they don’t want the liability of something breaking too easily.

~ Try to pack boxes with items from the same room.
It’ll make unpacking quite a bit easier too.

~ Label each box by room as well as a description of its contents.
This will help everyone know where each box belongs in your new home.

~ Bundle breakables.
Pack dishes on their sides, never flat.

Some special tips:

~ You may need special crating and packing when moving valuable art.
No regular paper when wrapping up oil paintings. Make an X with masking table across glass on any framed glass art to strengthen the glasses integrity.

~ Consider other items that will need special treatment.
Plasma tvs may require special special packing if you don’t have the original box. They have the potential of being ruined if you lay them flat. Make sure your movers are experienced in handling tvs.

Another great tip I found is numbering each box you pack and then making an itemized list complete with each box number and the contents that you can reference. I haven’t used this idea in previous moves, but I will definitely be using this during this go around. It will make it easy to tell the movers exactly how many boxes we have and help me be assured that everything has arrived safe and sound at the new home. I also plan to do a pretty detailed list of what each box contains so when we have been in the new house for a week and we can’t find my little guy’s favorite transformer mask, I can look at my list and know exactly what box I can find it in!

During the last couple of weeks I’ve begun to prepare for the move by going through all our closets, chest of drawers and kitchen cabinets, trying to weed out things we had outgrown or didn’t want or need anymore. I used to be so good at going through everything we owned regularly. Then I had one kid and my time to do projects like that got cut waaaay down. And then I had another kid, and it got even more difficult. I love organizing and it’s been fun to go through everything and purge! My goal is to try and get super organized from the get go in the new house to help with the whole clutter/purge situation.

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