Not everyone is Type A and enjoys the thrill of packing up their entire home in shipping boxes and moving them point A to point B. Not everyone enjoys the challenge of coming up with creative ways to make the process as efficient as possible.
Thankfully, those people have put together some tips for the rest of us, and here are ten of them:
- Right out the gate, make sure you are properly sealing your boxes. Shipping boxes are only shipping boxes if you can ship stuff in them without the bottom blowing out.
- Keep the rooms separated. Don’t pack stuff from the kids room into a box that has hall closet stuff in it. This will make the unpacking process so much quicker, and easier.
- Save money by keeping your drawers stuffed, securing the contents a couple strips of masking tape (which will not ruin your furniture), or even self-stick plastic wrap.
- Pack your plates standing on their sides. Wrap each one individually in paper, and stuff all the empty spaces. A helpful, bonus tip is to pack larger glass items at the bottom, since shipping boxes aren’t usually handled with an extra amount of care.
- Use wardrobe boxes or the trash bag/wardrobe bag concept. There is no need to take all of your clothes off their hangers when you are moving.
- When its time to tape a box shut, lay a piece of string along the seam, leaving a few inches hanging off one side. When it’s time to unpack you can pull on the string, which will cut right through the tape.
- Your boxes need to be properly labeled or you won’t know which room they needed to be unloaded into. The last thing you will want to deal with is a bunch of scattered shipping boxes or, even worse, having one room stuffed with all of them from the floor to the ceiling.
- As you are breaking down your furniture and taking down your picture frames just go ahead and place all of that hardware in plastic baggies and label them. Then, take those labeled plastic baggies and put them in a bigger bag, or a small box.
- Do yourself a favor and begin the packing process weeks in advance. It always takes way longer than we think we will, and it’s the biggest project and hugest stressor.
- You may not have heard this tip, and it’s just begging to be told: pack small items in large boxes and large items in small boxes. The basic concept is to pack heavy items in small boxes so that they don’t go breaking through the bottoms of the large ones.
