Packing Tips
Moving takes time and if you’re doing your own packing, which most people will do, make sure you give yourself lots of time – at least six weeks before your move.
Date and plan carefully.
Careful planning and packing will save you time, money and a lot of hair pulling.
Where To Start?
Decide what will move with you and what will stay behind. There may be items that you don’t need anymore or that aren’t worth moving or perhaps your move is temporary and certain unnecessary things can be put into storage. No matter what the answer is, decide beforehand what stays and what goes. If you have items already in storage, make sure you take a thorough inventory to ensure you’re not moving items you could do without.
Ask us or try to estimate what you’ll need and make sure you have enough on hand. Pick up your allocated boxes and purchase any extra you need from our box suppliers.
Pack non-essentials. Start packing items you can do without. If you’re moving in the summer, pack all your winter clothes, sports equipment and heavy blankets.
Label boxes. While you’re packing boxes, make sure you label the top and sides of boxes with contents, location of contents in your house and if there are any special instructions, such as “fragile” or “open first”.
Doing this will assist the movers in putting the boxes in the correct room and will warn them of any fragile items.
By keeping a complete list of the contents on the outside of the box, you’ll save time digging through 10 boxes marked “kitchen” just to find the can opener.
Properly label boxes with stickers that instruct the movers on how to handle the contents. Stickers can be bought at an office supply store or made on your own computer.
Clothes, towels, linens, pillows can be used to keep fragile items safe. Just make sure you mark this on the box for when the box is unpacked. If the person who is unpacking the box is unaware that a crystal vase is wrapped inside a fleece blanket, they could easily unfurl the blanket sending the vase crashing to the floor. blankets can also be used to top up boxes of books as not to make them too heavy.
Chests of drawers….
Items if not breakable can be left in drawers.
Make sure you properly wrap all fragile items in several layers of bubble wrap and pack them on their edge (plates, mirrors, picture frames, etc). I strongly recommend bubble wrap. It’s inexpensive and will prevent dishes and other fragile items from bumping against one another.
If you use newspaper to separate plates you may have had a few broken pieces as a result.
Tape any stray items together into a bundle. Ski poles, brooms, mops, lamp stands, etc… can be taped into one package for easy carrying and storing.
When moving furniture, make sure you keep all parts together with the item itself. Screws, bolts and other small pieces can be put into a self-locking plastic bag (sandwich bag/freezer bag) then taped to the furniture itself.
If you’re moving a table, unscrew the legs, tape the legs together then tape the parts bag to the underside of the table top. You can even tape the legs to the underside of the table top just to ensure that the legs don’t get scratched or dented in the move.
Matt Harper - Company Director – Smartmove Removals & Haulage Limited.
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