All Things Moving & Unpacking

Moving…While moving into a different house is an extremely happy and exciting time, the moving your stuff part is definitely not. We bought our Denver townhome a little over 3 years ago. When we bought it neither of us required a home office and we didn’t have a dog so the space was great. Little did we know, but we both require home offices and we have a precious puppy, Duke (of Utzig), who is almost 11 months old. Needles to say, we outgrew the town home and fast. It was time for a move, a move to the burbs.

We just moved into our house in the burbs this weeks.  It seems like it has been a bit longer and shorter at times considering the amount of work we have done, but it’s fabulous and ours. One thing that has helped me tremendously with the move was my organization in packing. This is the first move I have strictly stuck to my organization plan and it has helped tremendously in unpacking.  Let’s face it, we do not have the time to spend a significant amount of time unpacking, nor does anyone else.

Packing

• Label the boxes.  I used to just label moving boxes with: kitchen, bedroom, etc., however this move I actually wrote what was in the box in addition. If it was plates and water goblets, I wrote, “Kitchen: plates and water goblets.”  If it was picture frames and candles I wrote that. You get the point. Write what is actually in the box. This will save you time when it comes to unpacking and you are searching for stuff. The search hunt is always real.
• Buy consistent size boxes. We used 2 different sized boxes from Home Depot. It made our life 100 times easier when stacking them and overall just helped with organization.  
• Boxing Tape and a Sharpie are your best friends. Don’t be afraid to tape “too much” or write too much.  If you have 6 different items or categories in a box, write it, it’s not going to kill anyone and it’s going to make your life easier. Your boxes won’t fall apart as they will be taped together nicely.
• Wrap fragile items as if someone were going to drop the box and they would still be intact. Yes, it’s great to put fragile on the box, but as the fragile box sometimes happens to be the 100th box you lifted for the day. Your arms can get tired and your mentality a bit sloppy on picking up and unloading from the moving truck. This is the first move I didn’t lose a single glass and it’s because I wrapped them gloriously with bubble wrap (Home Depot) and foam wrap (Home Depot).
• You will need more boxes and packing materials than you think. I don’t even want to know how many trips I made to Home Depot while packing as I didn’t buy enough boxes. We needed way more boxes and wrapping materials than I could have ever imagined. My advice: buy way more than you think you will need. If you have any left in the end you can always return them.  

Moving

Suns out guns out, right? Gosh moving day was a beast. My fiance and I moved everything ourselves and I happen to think I gained a significant amount of muscles during this feat. Tips and tricks for moving:

• Start early. Moving will take you longer than you think. It’s always better to give yourself more time than not enough.

• Move when you are most awake/ready. We got up bright and early in the morning as we are morning people. Loaded the 20 foot U Haul to the brim and unpacked it in our garage all by noon. Yes, we did that! Are we crazy? Maybe a bit, but we were motivated.

• Organize your unloading. When we unloaded I organized by room and urgency. For example: I put kitchen stuff right by the door so I could unpack it that day. (I was sick of eating out for the duration we had to.)

• Unpack one box at a time. I think this is the first time I have followed this trick too. I literally would bring in one box and unpack the entire thing, break it down, put it in recycling and then grab the next. We moved in a very time efficient manner doing this and the mess with empty boxes and wrapping materials was minimal.

Moving is a tremendous feat. It’s not only exhausting physically, but stressful, and at times unhealthy due to the amount of times a meal is fast food. I promise you the “move” is worth it. You will feel at home in no time using the above tricks.

In addition to the above, I highly recommend taking the time to make 1 or 2 rooms you, to help make your new home feel like home. What do you mean, you say? I made our bedroom and the kitchen/living room our own. I semi-decorated them and made them us so that the other 3000 square feet of house didn’t seem so daunting. This also has given us a piece of mind to relax and just be us. Let’s face it, the house isn’t going to get decorated overnight.

Cheers to you and your move! It’s an exciting time and don’t let the stress of moving take away from that!

XOXO

Jess

P.S. Don’t forget to reward yourself with some bubbles at the end of the day. This is a crucial step!