I have a love hate relationship with moving. On one hand, I hate having to disrupt my space and pack everything up. Watching your space fill with boxes and not knowing where my stuff is is an actual nightmare. But, I’m also super type A and OCD (duh) so I love the challenge of keeping the move organized.
So, I tried to implement a few things that had varying levels of success with this move. Here are things that worked well for me and that didn’t pan out for me.
Things that Worked Well:
Color Code
Since I was moving back to my parents, half of my stuff was going into storage. I didn’t need a bed since my parents already had one in the room as well as most of my décor. So I needed to be able to quickly tell the movers which stuff was going where.
So, I used colors! I had some blue painters tape that I put on the boxes and other things that were going to go to my parents house. Tip here, put it on multiple sides of the boxes! This was super helpful when I had all of my boxes stacked up I could still see which went where.
Label, Label, Label!
If you ask for people’s advice on moving, everyone says to make sure you label all of your boxes. And I will say this is critical. Before my move, my family cleaned out the storage garage for my stuff, and those boxes were not labeled at all. We had to take almost everything out of the boxes to see what it was so we could decide if it was staying or getting donated.
My tip with labeling is to go ultra-detailed. On the sides of my boxes, I wrote out everything that was in the box. Yes, everything. Some boxes have what seems like scrolls on the side, but I am now able to look at each box and I have an idea of what is in there so I can find something if I am looking for it.
Learn from My Mistakes:
Bring everything you need
This may seem like a no duh, but make sure you have enough supplies for your move. Most likely, you will underestimate how much you need, so buy some extra. Tape and boxes go quickly!
For my move, I was going to my apartment just to pack, so not having everything when we went led to multiple trips back to my apartment to pack. I also forgot to bring my computer during the first packing excursion, so I wasn’t able to do the detailed inventory of each box in excel that I wanted to do. I found a work around, but it was still frustrating at the time.
Move Boxes into the Right Space
A lot of focus goes into the packing part of a move, but making sure your stuff is moved in correctly is just as important. This starts with a plan for where the major furniture pieces are going to go, which is something that I did do.
However, once we had finally gotten back to my parents place after packing up my apartment and dropping half of my stuff at storage, we were all beat. So I just had the guys put the boxes anywhere.
Big mistake. My move-in had a specific order it had to go in since there was already stuff at my parents, and of course the box I needed first was in the back of 15 large boxes. Having to deal with this after the stress of moving leaving my old place may have led me to give up for a little.
Next time, I am going to make sure I look at the boxes as they are getting moved in and set them up near the contents final homes. That only makes unpacking even easier since you don’t have to move super heavy boxes all around your space.
Moving may suck, but I hope that you can learn from the mistakes and successes of my move to make it easier. The best way to approach it is to prepare, be methodical, and think about the end of the move and your new space. Focus on the exciting part of moving instead of the stress, the fact that it is a new start!
Do you have any moving tips you swear by?
