Moving Tips Galore!
Yes it is true, we moved! Bitter/sweet, major event for us.
But we have some moving tips for ya!
Life has a funny way of surprising you. Justin and I had just decided to stay in Texas for another 5 years. We love our friends there and the house was just getting to be the best it could be! But then we were offered an opportunity that would bring us closer to family. So, we worked our little fannies off to get the house complete. It’s just a house right? But I am telling you, it was sad to pack up the house when it has never looked that good the whole time we lived there.
But family is very important to us and we felt that it was time to be closer to them, while our children are young. We loved living away from family without kids… but life and priorities change when you have kids, can I get an AMEN?
Anyway, this is our third major move as a couple and every time we have moved with ABF U-pack. We love this company! We pack up, they drive it, we unload. It makes life so much easier! Since we have just been through it all, we wanted to share some moving tips with you!
Our Moving Tips
1. Let ABF U-Pack drive your stuff. SO WORTH IT! Then you can drive your family in the comfort of your own car. This is a lot less stressful than driving a heavy loaded, gas guzzling, moving van really slow for miles and miles. The additional bonus is that you can make a road trip out of your travels. Take your time, see some sites and make some memories.
2. Break down or disassemble furniture, as many pieces as you can. Every square foot counts (no matter who you are moving with) but that is one of the greatest features of U-Pack. If you end up using 20 feet and not 28 feet you will only pay for 20 feet and save money. We all like to save money!
3. Use that awesome stretch wrap for packing! If you buy one packing supply besides tape, this is what you want! We got our at Walmart and went through 3 rolls. What ever you want to group together you can, using the plastic wrap without having to deal with the goop that tape leaves behind! We used this a lot for the furniture we broke down.
4. Use lots of tie-down straps. 12 feet or longer. Every two feet on the walls of the trailer, there are slots that you can use for securing tie-downs to keep your things from shifting too much, during transit. I used about 12 throughout the whole trailer.
5. Buy furniture pads to protect your furniture from rubbing and scratches. We actually bought ours from U-pack when we moved from North Carolina (we also use blankets!). We also use left over boxes to wrap furniture too!
6. Turn drawer hardware inside out. If you have handles that stick out from dressers, buffets, these can scratch other pieces. If you take them out, and re-screw them on inside out. You won’t lose your hardware, but you also will protect your other pieces of furniture.
7. Use the drawers in furniture to protect your small fragile items. I wrapped up glass items with bubble wrap in the drawers of my buffet and sturdy furniture drawers. Nothing broke! YAY!
8. Never pack liquids in unmarked boxes!! We learned this the hard way… okay well technically it was more of an accident BUT it was really sad. When we were moving from North Carolina, I packed a bunch of stuff early on. Only ONE of those boxes had any liquid. Of course that box was placed over my piano, and got crushed… and you can see what happened to the piano in that linked post. Not an exciting thing to find a damaged piano believe me, I know!
9. Pack the whole truck to the ceiling and fill every little gap. Remember the game Tetris. Well, you will be playing it in real life as you load the truck. Take your time do get things placed just right. We actually used our couch cushions and pillows, as gap fillers, throughout the packing. We took the covers off to protect the fabric or had them in large garbage sacks. This tip sort of depends on who you move with. If you move with someone else, just remember to keep the height of your stuff even throughout the trailer.
10. Drag out an extension cord to the end of the trailer so you can plug in a fan and some music while packing. It makes life so much nicer, especially in the hot summer months. This will keep you cool and keep you in a better mood while packing the truck. When we were packing the trailer was 105 degrees inside HOT MUCH?
11. When moving in the heat, drink lots of water and take breaks every couple of hours, to avoid heat exhaustion. A small cooler filled with drinks, at the end of the trailer is a great idea especially if you have helpers (or keep them in the fridge, just make sure everyone knows they are welcome to grab them as the want them)
12. Store with ABF. If you need an extra month you can keep your stuff on the trailer and only unpack once. We didn’t do this when we moved from Utah to North Carolina.. We unloaded it into a storage unit and that was a 25 minute drive from our final home. That meant like 800 trips back and forth from storage when we finally got into our home. PAIN IN THE NECK! When we moved to Texas, we stored it for a month. It saved our life! Especially when the jerk person we bought the house from didn’t sign the contract for 13 days…. and were homeless, without a place to put our stuff!
13. BUY DONUTS or pizza or both and water/soda on the day of the move! If you want people to help you let them know where they are and offer them food and drinks through out the move!
Additional Moving tips from Remodelaholic readers
(via FACEBOOK):
14. When you get to the new house, first thing you should do is make your bed. It makes it instantly “homey” and you’ll be ready for bed when you are so tired you can’t move another thing!
15. Start packing WAY in advance, a box at a time, and label what’s in it and what room it goes in.
16. Purge as much as you can. Sell, donate or give extra items to your friends!
17. Bribe as many people as you can to help. (Food always works well) Like I said above DONUTS!
Additional packing tips from ABF can be found on their website.
Cassity Kmetzsch started Remodelaholic after graduating from Utah State University with a degree in Interior Design. Remodelaholic is the place to share her love for knocking out walls, and building everything back up again to not only add function but beauty to her home. Together with her husband Justin, they have remodeled 6 homes and are working on a seventh. She is a mother of four amazing girls. Making a house a home is her favorite hobby.
Love this! We are moving for the 4th time in 2 1/2 years. Military life, oy. 🙂
Hope I can talk Hubby into using ABF! Not looking forward to a 20+ hour drive with a 6 month old.
Olivia, good luck with your move! Thanks for commenting! We know what you are about to go through with the 6 month old. 🙂
Number 6 is BRILLIANT!
I got that idea from my sister’s movers. It really is a helpful hint!
An interesting discussion is definitely worth comment. I do think that you need to publish more on
this topic, it might not be a taboo matter but usually people do not talk about
such topics. To the next! Cheers!!streetdirectory
*Candace*
These are seriously some of the best packing tips I have seen! (found you via Pinterest) We are moving from Oregon to Florida and are going to go with ABF too, we have heard great things about them. I was wondering….did you have a 28 foot trailer and only paid for the 20 feet you used? If so, do they pack other peoples stuff in your truck?
Jen, if you don’t use the whole trailer they will only charge you for the amount you use. They will rent out the rest for other things, but your things are separated with a divider wall. That is what happened to us the first time. The third time we rented the whole trailer, because we had more stuff.
Awesome, thanks for the info Justin!
These are excellent tips! We are expert movers and follow about half of this list, we are lucky that we always have help during our moves and that we have a FIL with a giant trailer we can use! Great tips!
We got a few dozen donuts and set them on the porch with a jug of cold water. I hung a sign that said “We “DONUT” know what we would do without you! Thank you for your help!” Our moving help was glad for the treat and I was glad I could give them a small thank you. We really couldn’t do it without their help!
Being military we do this a lot~! Normally we have the movers the Army hires do it instead of a DITY (Do it Yourself). However — a few tips, Ziploc baggies are your friends! Ziploc anything small that goes together (office supplies), magnets, silverware, etc before it gets boxed up– trust me you can thank me later! 😀 and now Ziploc has all sizes of bags so you can keep lots of stuff together! Invest in paper goods, nobody wants to do dishes and pack at the same time! Only pack enough stuff to live on for a week or slightly more — chances are you’re NOT moving to a third world country and you CAN live without that item or pick one up at the nearest Walmart if you must have it later!
Thanks for the tips, Holly!
What type of straps do you use to tie things down?
when we are moving (we’ve done around 8 in 14 years) we pack the dresser drawers with the things we’ll need for the first night: bedding, toilet paper, towels, shower curtain(s) & rings, paper towel, paper plates, plastic cups, plastic bowls, plastic utensils, a change of clothes…
So smart! Thanks for sharing, Melanie!
We recently moved and if you use a moving company make sure you are the 1st move of the day! They are on time and ready to go.
And double check that the wardrobe box you put together in the closet will fit through the opening. Lesson learned there!
I made sure the kitchen was the first room to be fully functional.
Thanks for the tips, Devon!
So happy to hear you’ve used U-Pack! I’ve just been looking into them for moving some furniture across the country.
We had a great experience with them!