Easy Moving or Hard: You Can't Take The Building With You

posted on 21 May 2011 | posted in Cars and Transport

Moving house can be easy if you haven't lived on your own for long, and you haven't acquired a lot of stuff. In that case you may not need to do much more than pack your suitcase, and maybe a box or two of trinkets and move to the next location. If you are like me, however, and you've spent a few years at an apartment that you had more or less settled in, you would have acquired all manner of items, like a stove, refrigerator, microwave, coffee table, furniture, kitchen appliances and the list goes on.

Packing all that up is like packing a life and it cannot happen in one day or even a week. If you have two full weeks to do your packing, then it would be quicker for you, as you have no distractions nor interruptions other than having to feed yourself and take some bathroom breaks, or sleep. If you are working though, you should give yourself a month to do your packing.

First rule of the move is not to give yourself extra work by cooking because cooking takes time and you need all the time you can get. To make sure you do that, start packing your kitchen items first. You can call in some friends to help you. Make a party of it with takeout. Many hands are better than two that's the second rule of the move. Clean a corner of the kitchen and stack completed boxes in that corner. This might take a couple of days depending on your work schedule and the commute, but with help it will be done much quicker.

When you are done, clean out the kitchen (sweep, mop, dust, whatever) and close that door. You are not going back in there. You can survive on take-out or a friend's cooking for that month, right? Next stop is the living area. Pack all of your ornaments etc into boxes and stack them in a cleaned corner of the living space.

Stack all of your furniture in another cleaned corner of the room. Drag your bed to the middle of the living space. This gives you room to work in the bedroom while providing an uncluttered place to sleep. Follow through with the rest of the rooms in this manner. Make sure all of you dirty clothes are washed and dried and packed away by the second to last weekend, leaving out only those clothes you need to wear for the last week. As you change your clothes dump them in the laundry basket. These will be washed after you relocate. When you are finished packing and cleaning, you should still have a few days left, rent a u-haul truck and have your friends start loading up the truck. If you're hiring a "man and van", ensure they have the necessary van accessories like roof racks for vans and general racking so it's easier to organize and secure your gear during the move.

Now you're done, and ready to move, take a walk through your house to make sure you are not leaving anything behind, jump into your truck an take off to your new location. Here comes the fun part: you get to unpack everything again. This time you have all the time in the world, so you can choose to do it alone or to get your friends to help. Start with unpacking your kitchen, you know you've missed your cooking.