Found a new place? Excited to experience your new city? Can’t wait to decorate your new home? In many ways, moving is “the best of times and the worst of times.”
While many new opportunities and experiences await when changing residence, the moving process itself can be long, arduous, and exhausting. It is a process that’s universally dreaded. You shouldn’t let the latter ruin the former, however! By following these tips, the packing process will be cinch and you’ll have ample time and energy to enjoy your new home when you finally arrive!
Sort and Separate Items You’ll Need First
When arriving at your new home, you need some basic tools and hardware that are either (a) vital to fulfilling your daily necessities or (b) essential to performing basic functions you need when unpacking! This includes items like a box cutter, paper towels, trash bags, eating utensils, select cookware, power strips, phone chargers, toilet paper, tools, etc.
Packing these into a readily accessible package or a box you can easily and immediately open when you arrive at your new home will make the moving process easier. The box will have all you’ll need during your first few days in your new home!
Ensure You Have Access to All the Necessary Packing Supplies in Advance
Packing your clothes, placing appliances safely inside boxes, and ensuring valuable items are wrapped up: You need appropriate tools and materials before you can start packing.
Making sure you have the proper packing materials, preferably weeks in advance, will make moving itself quicker and smoother. Here are the key things you’ll need:
- Boxes
Boxes are by far the most reliable and common storage option when moving. They’re affordable, practical, flexible, and easy to store, handle, and use. They help you save space during relocation and storage!
If you’re hiring professional movers, ask if they provide boxes. If not, make sure you purchase boxes in various sizes and shapes to pack heavy and light items properly. Use durable, specialty boxes to ensure they don’t get damaged on the road.
- Packing Tape
You can’t start packing without tape and box cutters. Most tape types will get the job done, but masking tape is generally considered the best: It is simple to use and gives away easily when unpacking.
- Packing Paper
Paper or bubble wrap is necessary to secure and pack many household items. They are indispensable packing supplies you’ll need if you want to safely pack fragile or breakable items.
- Garbage Bags
In the process of packing, you’ll likely find items you simply don’t want or need at your new home whether it is because they are old, broken, or serve no utility anymore. Having access to garbage or plastic bags where you can collect and throw out all these items will help you speed things up.
You Need Excercise Care When Packing Breakable and Fragile Items
Removals can be rough on household items, especially if the move is over long distances. With the moving truck shaking and wobbling, if fragile items aren’t properly packed, they risk getting damaged during transportation; There’s no worse feeling than arriving at your new home and unpacking only to learn a family heirloom or an appliance is broken! Thankfully, there are ways you can prevent this:
- Use Bubble Wrap
Bubble wrap is the easiest, most flexible way to protect fragile items. Simply make sure you completely wrap it around the breakable items before packing, and they should be safe on the road!
- Wrapping Items in Clothes
Wrapping fragile items in old, affordable, or leisure clothes can keep the items safe while not damaging the clothes. You’re killing two birds with one stone here: You need to transport the clothes to your new home, anyway, so why don’t you put them to use while you’re at it?
- Ensure Boxes with Fragile Items Have Distinguishing Markers
Whether it is using labels, different types or colours of boxes, or any other distinguishing marker, you need a way to distinguish between boxes that contain breakable items and boxes that contain regular ones. During handling, moving, and storage, you need to exercise more care with boxes containing delicate items.
Pack an Overnight Bag Containing All the Essentials for the Trip
When moving, you’ll be on the road for hours, sometimes days, and chances are, when you finally arrive at your new home, you’ll be too tired to unpack your things.
You’ll want easy access to your essentials, including some snacks, a change of clothes, and toiletries. However, the list can expand depending on your lifestyle and situation. If you have a pet, you need to stock up on some pet food. Adding your laptop if you have to take care of emails or relax is also a good idea! Ask yourself which items you absolutely must have access to in the first 2 or 3 days after the move, and pack them all in an easily accessible bag.
Clearly Label Boxes
The unpacking process can be very hectic. Handling and placing hundreds of furniture pieces, appliances, and household items in your new home will be both mentally and physically exhausting.
A great way to make it a bit easier is by using clear and descriptive labelling when you pack boxes. Do these cardboard boxes contain wires and electronics? Easy, this is the first place to look when installing the TV. Do these wardrobe boxes contain my clothes? Move them straight to the bedroom. Do these small boxes contain family heirlooms? Put them in a safe place until you can unpack them later!
This is one of the most important packing tips for moving as it makes the unpacking process so much faster and easier, saving you from headaches and frustration in the process!
If Possible, Inspect and Prepare Your New Home Before the Move
From fully furnished and ready to be lived in to empty without basic items, the state of a new home can vary a lot. Not only is inspecting your new home vital before you rent or purchase it, but it also impacts how you prepare for your move.
If your home is on the emptier side, you need to make some preparations before the move: Ensure the stove functions, there’s toilet paper, blinds and curtains are installed to protect your privacy, and the home has access to water, electricity, heat, and the internet.
Between packing, moving, unpacking, and dealing with the paperwork, you likely won’t have either time or energy to shop around or call technicians, so ensuring you have access to all the essentials at your new home days or weeks in advance is the right approach.
Rely on a Moving Company
Are there too many large boxes to move? Don’t know how you can complete your move on schedule? If you are feeling like the moving process is becoming too overwhelming, one of the first things you should consider is contacting a removal business.
A full-service moving company can make the process much easier:
- Safety and Reliability
Professional movers have years of experience. They know how to handle furniture pieces as well as fragile goods no matter their size, shape, or weight. They also use a reliable and modern moving truck adept at travelling long distances while keeping your items safe. If the safety of your items and the reliability of the removal are paramount, there is simply no alternative to a moving company!
- Removal on Your Terms
Using a reliable moving company gives you complete freedom over the relocation process, including when will the movers arrive to pack your items and where and when they’ll deliver them. You can pre-arrange the entire process leaving you to either relax or focus on more important things during the days leading up to your relocation.
- Save Money
Though it might sound counterintuitive, hiring a removal company can save you money! It saves you time, fuel, and even resources like packing materials, moving boxes, etc. Taken together, this often means relying on a moving company comes out cheaper than doing everything yourself!
So, before you begin packing, consider your options and seriously consider contacting a removal company!
Update Your Address Before Moving
You need to make sure all relevant parties know your new address, preferably days or weeks before you move! This doesn’t only include the government, but it also includes utilities and cable companies, Amazon, PayPal, credit cards, your bank, magazine subscriptions, and your mail.
The process, in many instances, is really simple, thankfully. You simply need to log in and update your address or merely contact customer support. In other instances, however, like updating your address at your bank, in-person visits and paperwork might be involved. So, you should do it when you have time before the relocation process begins.
Packing Your Clothes Properly
How you handle your wardrobe will likely be the largest and most time-consuming challenge you’ll face when packing. Hundreds of cloth items in different styles and sizes, suits, branded clothes, and more: You need to have a proper approach:
- To keep or not to keep: If you go through your wardrobe, you’ll likely find many pieces of clothes that are old, outdated, or no longer fit. You should ask yourself if they’re worth transporting to your new home or if should you dispose of or donate them.
- Sorting the clothes: Now that you have decided on the clothes you want to keep, you need to start sorting them. Suits and designer clothes go into their own pile where they are folded and packed with great care, hanging clothes are handled separately, which are ideally transported in hangers to ensure they come out as wrinkle-free as possible, and older and leisure clothes are last and relatively painless to pack.
- Proper packing tips: There are some key packing tips you need to know when handling your clothes. Make sure you use a high-quality wardrobe box to properly pack your expensive clothes. Wrapping leisure clothes around lighter items is a good way to put them to use while transporting them. You can also use garment bags for more delicate clothes and items.
Create a Concrete Plann
Now that you have a concrete idea of all the different aspects of packing and moving, it is time to formulate a concrete plan and stick to it.
- Old residence: The first thing you need to consider is ways to prepare your current residence for the move. Do you need to clean the kitchen? Notify the landlord? End your contract with the internet service provider? Once you move to your new home, a return trip to your old home will likely be time-consuming and expensive, so creating a comprehensive checklist to take care of all your business before you move is required!
- Packing: Creating a thorough plan for packing is necessary to ensure you have all the proper packing materials and you won’t forget any item during relocation. Packing hundreds of items in a short time span is draining and hectic. Without some reference or checklist, you’ll likely forget something. Without thinking through a way to handle heavy items and minimize empty spaces, you’ll go over budget.
