Moving is a Pain in the Rear - Here's A Few Packing Tips

Original post by Sarah @ Renewed Upon a Dream, please visit her website for more great ideas!”

Gahhh moving!  I know I’ve moved a lot, but moving is still tough.  One of the worst parts for me is living with the boxes all over the house while packing.  That & figuring out HOW to pack.  What should go in the box first?  What size boxes should we use for what?  Oh & packing the kitchen is always a nightmare!  Packing for this move, my mom & I both were collecting boxes from our workplaces to use for packing, so I had a lot of different sized boxes to work with.  But they came in a little at a time.  So I packed a little at a time, over the course of the last month.

At the same time as packing, I was purging, and painting furniture.  I wanted to make sure everything that we brought into the new place was ready.  Oh my gosh I have been reeeeally busy.  But I wanted to talk today about the order of packing for a big move.  We don’t have kids, so if you do, you may have to make some adjustments or additions to my list, but generally, this is what in my moving experiences have found to work best.

3 Weeks Out: First things first, the easy stuff.  Things that you only use once a year, or wont use for another 6+ months.  The first things I packed up were my seasonal things, and my “junk drawers” in the house.  My dry sink for example is kind of a junk drawer for us.  I keep seasonal wreaths in it, Scentsy scents, lightbulbs & the like in there.  That all got packed up right away.  I also packed up videos, books, nick knacks from all our rooms.  Things that we don’t USE but are just their for looks.  In keeping with this, I also cleared things off the walls.  Took down everything on our decorative shelves, photos, paintings etc.

2.5 Weeks Out: Next came the craft room/office.  I packed up everything that I didn’t KNOW I was going to use before moving.  So that pretty much meant everything except my bookbinding supplies & some yarn & crochet hooks.  Everything else went in the boxes.  I also packed up small appliances in the kitchen.  Things like our food processor, griddler, coffee grinder, & blender.  Everything that we don’t use every day, and could survive a couple of weeks without… the coffee maker stayed out, obviously.  Can not survive without that…

2 Weeks Out: I moved into the bathroom & did the same thing.  Packing up everything that we don’t use every day.  I went a couple of weeks without doing my nails, because that was all packed up.  No facial masks for a couple weeks.  I packed up my hair straighteners & curling irons & just kept out my blow drier.

1.5 Weeks Out: I hit the linen closet.  Packing up all our bedding that wasn’t being used.  All the towels that weren’t being used. Blankets & board games which we kept in there too.  We also took down our “pantry” & started going through food we’d eat & not eat in the coming week.  I packed up some baking supplies that I wasn’t going to use & things like spices & some cooking utensils.

Weekend Before: We worked on the garage this past weekend.  Our garage leaks,  like water seeps in under the walls.  So the things we put in there to store 4 years ago are all pretty well ruined… we just never got around to taking it all to the dump a couple of miles away.  We also had some things in the house that needed to go.  A few trips to Salvation Army, and $80 spent at the dump later, we have a pretty cleaned out garage & spare room & I feel so much better about life…HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders!

Last Week Before Move:  By that time, it was getting to be crunch time.  You know, when you have to start getting ruthless. Because we’re crazy, we started moving everything into the living room/dining room, which is where the front door is.  Boxes & furniture & literally everything has been being piled into the living room.  We took apart furniture, like our sectional couch & our bed frame.  We boxed up food from the kitchen that wasn’t on the menu for this week.  I did as much laundry as possible.  It’s been busy!

Now, all we have out & not packed away is things that we are going to be using in the next 24 hours.  Everything else is packed… even that coffee maker, we’ll grab some from Biggby Coffee in the morning.  Wish us luck on our big move!