When it comes to a move to a new home there is a lot to consider. One of the better tips we ever heard of was the three tarp system. Now in this case we will only need two, because the third is “keepers”. Moving alone can be a stressful event, but we have a few suggestions to keep your anxiety to a minimum.
One item that people often forget is time. The sooner you start some of this the better off you will be. It’s like that old saying about the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Moving is the same. Lots of little things will add up to the whole, so starting early lets you tackle the process in small pieces.
The first thing to start is the purge. Simply do a room by room sweep of the house and think about things that you haven’t touched or used in the last year.Chances are you don’t need it. With clothes, anything you haven’t worn in the last six months can go, except for seasonal or specialty gear. This purge involves those two tarps we mentioned earlier. If possible make a large space available in the garage, or covered on the lawn. One tarp is for junk, the other for donation. Anything too worn or broken or dysfunctional goes to recycling. This can be a large bin that can go straight to the recyclers. Be ruthless if it is no longer functional.
Tarp two is Donation. If people have outgrown, stopped using or even don’t like something that may be valuable to someone else donate it. Pile or pack everything onto this tarp and then before moving day make a trip to your local service groups and donate these items to them. Some will even come and get it all for you, saving you a trip.
Since you have purged you have already saved time and money because there is now less to pack, and less to move. No sense paying to move things you don’t want or need, only to throw it away after arriving at the new place.
The next thing you can do is create the room checklist. This can be a piece of paper for every room, with the name of each room on the top. Use it to list every major item that is in the room before it gets packed. Don’t list everything in a bathroom drawer, just list the drawer. It will all go into a single box. You can even skip this step if you have hired a company to pack and move for you. They will create a list as they go. And then it’s a simple matter of sorting on the other side.
So when moving day approaches, purge, sort, and let the movers handle the rest.
