What are your best moving tips?

Have somebody else do it! But seriously, find a mover you like and trust. They can help you a lot. Be sure to pack with paper. Even in very short moves stuff breaks very easily. One last piece of advice. My mother used to say this, and it’s true. Don’t think of packing or unpacking as one big job—take it one room at a time. The mantra, not to mention actually doing it, really works. Good luck. Oh, and drink lots of water.

I pack one room at a time starting with the bedroom since so much gets crammed in there. I use plastic drawstring bags to store the contents of each drawer and then small boxes for whatever is in the bathroom drawers and cabinets. Setting up the bedroom first in the new place does this for me:

Bed in place in case I have to sleep over and get an early start.
Bed acts as a big cushion to lay things out on as I put them away.
Most of what I own gets stored in the bedroom and so getting it set up first feels like a huge accomplishment.

I buy:
boxes of drawstring plastic bags
Sharpie marker
Strapping tape from Uhaul (theirs doesn’t shred or crackle and piss me off)
Paper wrapping sheets from Uhaul ($10. ea) because they make loading boxes of plates, glassware, nic nacs and stuff a cinch.
used empty boxes from a car dealership parts dept- they’ll give them to you free, often with fresh packing paper and the boxes are usually a good medium to large size.

If you need free boxes go somewhere like walmart around 11 pm when they’re stocking the shelves. We’ve never paid for boxes by doing this. If you have the money then having a mover do everything for you is awesome! They’ll pack everything for you and move it all to your new place. But it can be expensive.

Don’t try to do all the packing in one day. It can take a long time to do it all, especially when it comes to the kitchen. And like @Austinlad said, use a lot of paper for your breakables. Stuff loves to shift when you move it.

Good luck with your move!

Liquor boxes, and as @Neizvestnaya says, garbage bags. They’re great for clothes. Shoe boxes for smaller things that you want to keep together. Pizza and beer for helpers.

ummm.. depends on how nice your stuff is. If you have nice stuff, would call a professional. If not, rent a u-haul, and hire a few guys to move your stuff. Also, places like Servicemaster, Serv-Pro, etc. are good at this and don’t cost as much as a major moving company.

Make sure the cat didn’t jump into a box just before it got taped up.

I take a drawer at a time from my dresser and dump it in a plastic bag. Same with linens and bedding. I can load pretty much all my bedroom in plastic bags in the car leaving just the furniture to move. Many times I’ve stacked dresser drawers in my backseat holding uprights like toiletries, lamps, candlesticks, books, whatever. For clothes on hangers then I cut a hole in the bottom of the bag to feed a group of hangar necks through and then cinch the drawstring, it keeps the clothes relatively flat until I can loose and hang them in the new place.

Yard Sale!!

@Austinlad said it best, carefully pack everything. I have broke more stuff in short moves than one half way across the US. Good Luck

Don’t move.

@ChazMaz: My building is getting torn down. I’d prefer not to be in it when that happens.

Since you’re moving so close to where you live, why not take one drawer at a time, keep things in them and put them into your car. Same with your hanging stuff; leave it hanging, put a plastic garbage bag over the top and poke the tops of the hangers through. Lay these across the backseat of your car or on top of other stuff. Because you’re so close, you can take your kitchen stuff the way that it is… even if you’re not moving the cabinets from your current place, instead of taking the time so pack up everything and have to unpack it, it may be wiser and faster to just take the drawers, unload them immediate in your new place (head there to clean before) and then on the trip back, just replace the empty drawers.

Open top boxes (like what you can get at BJ’s or Costco) could be really helpful also. I would think it may be easiest and cheapest (if you’re buying it) to reuse stuff like this – fill it up, take a trip & empty it (maybe onto the floor or a big table if you don’t want to take the time to get organized just yet), then head back and repeat. If you have the time to do this, it will also prevent you (hopefully) from having unpacked boxes laying around forever (which always seems to happen when anyone moves!).

Get wxerox paper boxes from Staples, Kinkos, etc. Those boxes are strong and all the same size, easy to stack [modular]. Wine boxes from liquor stores are pretty good, too, but need more taping [the copy paper boxes have nice removable lids]. Copy paper boxes are the best. Save your newspapers for wrapping. One or two big boxes that may be worth buying are wardrobe boxes with the rail in for hanging things.

Start early and small. Go through small things first, selecting things for yard sale or Goodwill. Put them aside to get rid of. Start organizing and packing by “least used”—least used books, kitchenwares, knickknacks, clothes, linens. If you start way in advance you will be able to pack treasures calmly and carefully.

Set aside one area in your home, maybe clear a space against one wall, and stack boxes there. Watch the ready-to-go stuff pile up.

If you have given yourself some overlap time, go early to the new place and put up curtains, shutters, closet hooks, kitchen cupboard accessories like bag holders, any small furniture items you can carry over yourself and can live without for a few weeks. Minimize the ultimate cost in rentals and man-hours by dropping small stuff by on your own at your convenience.

try to time it so somebody else ends up carrying the box full of books

Watch out on overstuffing the boxes…. I had a tendency see to do that. Made them heavy heavy. and the bottom broke. on one. My hubby was cursing up a storm.

Lots of small, easy to carry boxes is better than big, heavy boxes. Take the time necessary to do it well, rather than be sorry for broken things later.

I suggest using towels, t-shirts and garbage bags to wrap things, rather than newspapers.

The ink and other stuff on newspapers can get in little cuts in your hands and cause havoc. I had to go to the hospital for a severe infection a few years back from a newspaper cut.

Wash your hands frequently, and drink a lot of water – Alcohol should wait until you are settled.

Your question has brought me good luck! I got word this morning I’m approved for a new rental and so now I am also packing, almost done. How’s your move going? wear some sneakers cause I had on flip flops and stubbed my toes. Doh!

I really don’t know about practical moving tips, but I did see a very funny scene painted on the outside of rental moving truck. It had a human figure (like the ones you see on restroom doors) standing looking very puzzled beside a box that was bounding up & down & side-ways – and it said “Moving Tip: Never pack the dog & the cat in the same box!”

I was a miltary brat we moved every 6 months or so, never leave your apartment empty handed. When just running to the store stop by the new place to drop off a car load. If friends stop by have everyone pick up something and walk over to see the new place. When you are in your new place empty the box to take back to your old place. Most important is your move out deadline you can put things away in your new place later.

Trying to do it yourself a little at a time sounds great, but the issue there isn’t how far you’re moving, it’s how much.

Don’t think that just because you’re moving close by you don’t have to pack. You might not have to pack the same as for moving across the country, but you can’t leave everything loose or you will have sheer chaos.

Number your boxes and make a list with room and type of contents.

Put numbers on the sides as well as on top.

Don’t fill large boxes with nothing but books.

Trying to take closets full of clothes in bunches still on the hangers is practically unmanageable. You won’t believe how heavy they are or how badly they can tangle.

It’s all the little stuff that you have only one of—vegetable peeler, tweezers, bottle opener, curling iron—that you’re going to go nuts looking for as you’re getting settled. Try to be logical and rational about what you do with them.

If you’re the sort who needs to purge from time to time, use the opportunity.

Pack a suitcase with all the personal stuff you’re going to need right away, in the first day or two, just as if you were going out of town.

This is horrible.

What is? Packing and moving? Or this thread with our responses to your question?

If the former, my sympathies. I’d rather have four teeth pulled, give birth, and take six final exams than pack and move.

How long have you been in your place? Even after one year in an apartment, it was always an ordeal. I’ve been in one spot now for 33 years. Just imagine.

If I lived nearby, I’d come help, I’m really good at this. Much to my dismay

Oh, no! I didn’t mean to imply the thread was horrible. The advice has been great. Moving is horrible.

We’ve been here for about two years. I’ve never had to move furniture before. I can’t figure out how to get my desk through my bedroom door, nor am I strong enough to undo the screws holding it together. May be time to enlist help.

Turn it on its side and angle it so that the footwell wraps around the corner.

(How did you get it in there?)

I bet I could unscrew it. I bet you’re twice as strong as I am. But you shouldn’t be moving heavy furniture alone anyway. Do you want to break yourself? It’s okay to ask for help. (Still learning that one myself: you don’t have to be Superwoman.)

Here’s one I forgot-

Put pieces of cardboard underneath heavy furniture legs to help them slide across carpet.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to angle it through the door. It seems like I’ll have to take it apart. Someone with a y chromosome is coming to my rescue. I am disgusting and cranky. Eff.

This will be over soon, sweetie. Meanwhile, just hum to yourself: “Something in the Way She Moves . . . ”