Welcome to the Jungle

Our apartment is officially in total chaos. It was bound to happen sooner or later (though I must admit I thought I had another week or so before it got to this point).

As you can see, we are now living in a jungle of the boxes—both empty and filled—and other assorted stuff. But the good news is that it means we are getting closer to our new house!

As chaotic as this all appears, there really is a method to the madness; it’s all part of the moving process. And I should know—I have been a part of many (MANY) moves over the course of my 30 years and while I may not have been an active participant during the first half, I have picked up a few things. Namely, that planning and preparation is everything.

Here’s how I like to approach the process:

1.   1) Get a game plan together. The very first thing I did was put together a spreadsheet of all things we need to do between now and closing/moving and assigned due dates and leads for each task (can you tell that I have a lot of program management experience??). I put our spreadsheet on the fridge so we can stay on top of what we’ve done and what we still need to do. This process has worked pretty well so far- we know what we need to get done each week and it’s kept us track. 

Other things to tackle first—movers/truck and boxes. Our realtor recommended My Truck Buddy for our move--a DC area based company that has its own truck and you can pay by the hour for three people to move your stuff. Seems like reasonable prices-- I'll let you know how it all works out. When perusing MTB's website, I came across information for a place where you can rent moving boxes-- cheaper than buying them from Uhaul (or the like) and they deliver the boxes and come and pick them up when you are done. Convenient and green....done and done.

       2)  Clean out. Moving is the perfect excuse to purge all the old/unflattering/out of date clothes (and shoes and other accessories) you still have in your closet/drawers. Same goes for other household items (books, dvds, music, knick-knacks, etc.) you may have collected over the years. Get rid of the waste—sell it on craigslist or donate to Goodwill or the library. Don’t move anything that you don’t need or use.

True to my advice, we have gone through all of our clothes, shoes and accessories as well as books and dvds. I got rid of a bunch of other extraneous household stuff when Jason and I got married and he moved in a couple of years ago but I anticipate that there will be some additional fat to cut when I start packing up the kitchen (coffee mugs, utensils, etc.) Over the last several weeks we have donated 10 bags of stuff to Goodwill and 5-6 bags of books/dvds to the local library. It’s a pain in the butt to do, but I find this cleaning out process to be almost cathartic.We also put a few things on craigslist including my desk and filing cabinet, an old bookshelf, bar stools, and my old Dell desktop. So far we've sold the desk/filing cabinet and the bar stools.

3)  Pack in chunks. Packing can take longer than you think. You may look around and think “I don’t have that much stuff”….but when you start emptying cabinets, closets, and drawers it starts to add up. I like to start the process 3-4 weeks ahead of time (after you’ve done the bulk of your cleaning out) to ensure that I can break it down in to smaller, manageable pieces and do a little at a time. On tap for this weekend-- my dining room stuff (china, good glassware and all my extraneous serving dishes, etc.) and books.


What moving advice has served you well in the past?