If there’s one thing that doesn’t change from year to year, it’s the stress of moving. There’s no new ‘voice assistant’ who will do it for you, they haven’t found a way to do it ‘smarter’ (except hiring a moving company!) and your furniture and belongings don’t come in any new high-tech, lightweight materials. While just about everything in our lives has become faster and/or easier in the last 100 years, from cooking to being connected, moving remains just about the same.
Yet, despite that long learning curve, we still see the same mistakes being made over and over again when people move their stuff. It’s to be expected. While moving has remained virtually the same for centuries, most people will only move a few times in their lives, so it’s not something you ever get good at. And, considering the lengthy list of ‘things to do’ for any move, from changing addresses to changing children’s schools, you can’t be blamed if one or two things slip your mind.
Except those things are often exactly the ones that can delay your move, or damage your furniture, or add to your frustration.
While it’s only natural for people to miss a thing or two in the midst of a move, here are just a few of the things that people forget fairly often, and that can add to the stress of a move.
1. Label Boxes Properly
Moving everything is one thing, but knowing exactly where everything goes and what’s in every box is crucial for a smoother move. Here are three main steps to properly labelling your moving boxes.
Label Every Box
Sure, when you’re packing them, you know exactly what’s in every box. But just wait until you’re in your new home and all the boxes are stacked all together in the living room.
Write Clearly
Don’t under-estimate the importance of large clear labelling in helping your movers (whether they are professionals or your personal moving posse) know what’s in a box (Is it FRAGILE? Heavy?) and where it goes in your new home.
Label More than One Side of the Box
Imagine you’ve been moving boxes all day and everyone you pick up needs to be spun around to find the label that tells you where it goes. Make it easier to know where boxes go and what’s in them and you’ll make your entire move easier.
2. Empty the Drawers
This one may not be so much forgotten as just overlooked. You probably never imagined you had so much stuff to move. When you look at the chest-of-drawers, full of relatively light clothing, it seems to make so much sense to leave the drawers in and move the chest ‘as is’. Except the chest-of-drawers isn’t designed to be a moving crate.
When you leave things in the drawers of your furniture, you can subject the furniture to stresses it isn’t designed for. When you tilt the chest onto two legs to move it, those two legs must now carry all the weight of the chest, and hold it up while on an angle; two huge stresses that they aren’t built for. If you don’t remove the contents of a drawer, or the entire drawer with the contents in, you’ll have a higher chance of damaging your furniture during the move.
3. Reserve the Elevator(s)
This is one of the most common ‘forgotten tasks’ and one of the most disruptive to any move, yet one of the easiest to do beforehand. If you live in or are moving to an apartment or condo building, and especially if you’re doing both, reserving the elevator at every location should be a priority. Even if you’re lucky enough have someone from building management on hand to reserve the elevator on-the-spot, your move will be at very least significantly delayed and more frustrating if you don’t reserve the elevator.
This list could be as long as your arm, yet you will still forget something during your move. But the fewer crucial things you forget, the better your move will go.
If you’re looking to make a move, get in touch with us here at Bradford Moving & Storage. We Specialize in local moves, long distance moves, office relocations, specialty moves & much more.
