oving to a new home has a lot of moving parts to consider, from making sure you hire the best moving company in Fort Collins, CO, to dealing with utilities and a whole truckload of paperwork.
Though this is all stressful and kind of annoying sometimes, it likely isn’t your biggest worry. Packing up the house properly is. This part is more overwhelming than the house search itself, especially if you’ve lived in your current home for many years. Hopefully, the information and advice below will help ease your worries and make the entire process much easier.
Prepare Your Supplies
Preparing your packing supplies may very well be the most obvious part of preparing to move. The main three pieces you’ll need in every room are boxes, tape, and permanent markers. The boxes will hold your stuff, so try to balance out the weight evenly, the tape will hold those boxes close, and the markers allow you to label each box so you know where it’s suppose to go.
However, these three are far from everything you’ll need. For example, you’ll also need something to cut the tape. Soft packing materials like blankets or bubble wrap can both fill space to keep items from moving too much and protect fragile items during the moving process.
Plastic bags can do a lot, from containing a bunch of small, loose items in one spot to protecting perishable items. While you definitely need boxes, markers and tape for each room, keep your other supplies and tools easily accessible so you can easily grab what you need when you need it.
Decide How to Pack
Gathering the materials you need to pack is pretty easy; markers, bubble wrap, tape and even moving boxes are pretty easy to find. Figuring out where you’ll start packing is an entirely different story, however. You can start with the hardest rooms or the least used ones.
The least used rooms may include the attic, basement, garage, the cabinet under the stairs, or any other room that you find yourself doing anything you can to avoid. It’s likely that a lot of the stuff in these rooms is already packe away; all you need to do is secure the boxes, label them, and then move them somewhere else so you remember to take them with you.
Many people choose to start with the hardest rooms, like the kitchen, first. This allows them to get over the mental hurdle of how challenging their move is by packing the least used appliances and tools first. These areas tend to be large and full of stuff that needs to be packed, so it feels like you’re starting on the right foot.
Most people will end up doing a bit of both, though. If you are moving with your family, for example, you may decide to spend some time focusing on the kitchen while your spouse tackles the attic or basement and your kids start with their bedrooms.
If you are trying to move with the help of multiple people, create a list of what rooms need to be packe and then have everyone write their names next to at least one room to make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what’s expected of them.
Make sure at least one person is mostly free so they can run and help anyone else who needs it, if you can. Even if you’re just packing alone, making a few lists of what needs to be done will make your packing journey much more organized and fruitful.
Remember Your Essentials Bag
Before you get too carried away, set a bag aside to be your essentials bag. It will hold everything you need immediate access to when you’ve made it to your new place. Chargers, some extra clothes, and any other important items should be packe inside it, but make sure not to put this bag inside the moving truck; it needs to stay with you at all times.
These items will help make your first stay at your new home much smoother because your home will be far from ready. You’ll have spent the day driving and moving boxes and furniture into the new place. You will need as much time to relax and sleep as possible, but you won’t get this if you’re stress and looking for the box with your toothbrush or pajamas. This essential bag will hold these items, so keeping it close to you is vital. It will also help you keep track of other useful items, like a blanket and your pillow.
You likely won’t be able to set up your bed frame before you need to sleep for the night, but you will have your mattress. Keeping your bedding near your essentials bag ensures that you can set your mattress up for sleeping with little stress. Basically, your essentials bag needs to not only store your most important items but also be a marker of where other important stuff needs to stay, so don’t forget it.
