If you’re facing a need to move your household, you’ve probably already started stressing out over the details. It’s always a painful experience to take an organized, functional home and turn it into chaos, but using these moving hacks can help take some of the sting out of one of life’s most anxiety-inducing experiences.
- Rent Plastic Moving Boxes – Forget about visiting every supermarket, restaurant, and bar in a 30-km radius to beg for empty boxes. Call and rent plastic moving boxes, and you’ll benefit in more ways than you may suspect. Not only are rented plastic bins cheaper than the cardboard boxes sold by many moving companies, but they provide better protection for your belongings, and they’ll stack more efficiently into the moving van because their sizes are uniform. They also won’t crush when you stack them all the way to the roof of the van, so you may just be able to hire a smaller truck or make fewer trips. Better still, when you’re done with them, you just call and have them picked up instead of spending weeks cutting down boxes and stuffing them into the recycle bin!
- Label Wisely – Get a set of pre-printed labels for each room; these are often color-coded, as well. Label every bin in the same place, so it’s easy for your movers to see at a glance where each bin belongs. Before moving day, put one of the pre-printed labels on the door of each room in the new house, so things can be accurately delivered, even if you’re not there to direct traffic. You can make unpacking easier by numbering each bin with painter’s tape, and keep a list in your phone’s note app of each bin number’s contents. If you need to find something before you get to the bin it’s in, having a searchable digital list in your pocket is a huge help. Share the list with household members, so everyone can locate their own stuff without having to come ask you!
- Map Out Your New Space – Measure the furniture and appliances you’ll be moving, then head to your new home with a roll of painter’s tape, notecards, and your measuring tape. Use the tape and cards to mark where everything goes, and be sure to check that everything has an adequate route to get where you want it. It’s better to know beforehand that your refrigerator or washer won’t fit through the door. By marking where you want things, you set the stage for a more efficient move-in, since the movers won’t have to find you to ask where to put things. You can also mark out areas where you want them to leave stacks of bins in each room, so you will have access to the furniture, closets, and cabinets without having to move the bins again.
Make Your Next Move Much Easier
By renting plastic moving boxes, you cut costs and get much better protection for your household goods than you would from cardboard boxes. Taking a little time before the full fury of moving day arrives to plan, mark, and label everything will cut down significantly on your stress level on your moving day and will make your first days in your new home feel less like a giant scavenger hunt.