We are on the move, people!

Selling the Mr’s first home has been a little bitter sweet, but boy are we excited for OUR new place! The new location is great for the lifestyle we want to further build, and the amount of hosting space is fantastic. People have been asking if this means we will start a family to fill bedrooms, and my response is: “no, those are all for guests!”.

I think I stand pretty alone in stating that I enjoy packing. It is stressful yet so satisfying! Over the years I have picked up a few tricks that help with making the packing process more efficient; if you want to learn how to make a move more stress free, read on!

1. Focus on one room at a time:
If you try and pack a little bit of every room at once, you will feel overwhelmed by your belongings. Instead, pick the room with the least amount of packing requirements as your first task. This will give you a soft start to the not-so-soft goal of packing up a home. If you have ever heard of the snowball effect for managing debt, this is essentially the same thing! Starting with something small that you can conquer in a quick period of time will give you the motivation needed to conquer the more time consuming and energy demanding tasks. You can also break this down further and focus on one area of a room at a time, ie. pack your closet, then your dresser, then your bedding, then your on-suite.

2. Label your boxes:
Once you start stacking boxes everything looks the same! Labeling your boxes can be done in a few different ways and it will make the world of a difference when unloading your trailer at the new place! Method 2 is one I am incorporating a lot in my packing. I tend to get excited packing items away only to later realize I still need it, so labeling will also help in hunting for items if needed!

Method 1: Colourful numbers 
Assign each room in your home a number or tape/marker colour. You can make the master bedroom #1, bathroom #2, office #3, and ensure that every box packed in said room is labeled with the appropriate number. This will also make unloading into the new house easier since you will know which boxes belong in what room. Let’s be honest, having 20 partially opened boxes sitting in the new front entrance is not a calm or appealing look!

Method 2: List your items
On my boxes I write something like “Kitchen: blender, tupperware, baking”. This way I have an idea of what is in the box and what room it will need to be placed in once unloaded. Cons to this method: it makes reusing boxes difficult as they have items listed on them.

Method 3: Excel spreadsheet Coding
Okay. This one is a little too Type A, even for me! But! If you have a niche for excel and organization, this may be your thing!
Code each box with a number + letter (ie. 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B) and in your excel spreadsheet write what is in it. It makes the boxes easily reusable, and it gives you the freedom to be as detailed as you desire when listing packed items. This is also a good way to track your belongings if you are hiring a moving company or are making several stops during your move (ie. your place > mom and dad’s > storage unit >new home).

3. Keep clothes on hangers:
I use to pack each individual item into a suitcase and it would take me waaaaay too long to get the job done. My new go-to move? Grabbing a few hangers with clothes of similar lengths, laying it flat on the floor, and neatly rolling it into one unit to be packed away. Once you begin unpacking, all you have to do is unroll the bundle and hang the items back up! Side note: I do not prefer this method for coats as they tend to be quite bulky already.

4. Load/Unload your trailer by room:
If you are not showing your current home to potential buyers, it gives you the freedom to keep boxes in their appropriate rooms until you pack vehicles and move! We had to place all of our boxes in the garage as no potential buyer wants to see that kind of mess while trying to envision themselves living there.  My goal was to have small posted notes on the wall showing the room where each set of boxes came from, but that flew out the window once we started moving boxes. However, I still intend to pack our trailer by room. Start by identifying your heavier boxes and placing those on the trailer floor, from there you can stack the remaining boxes in each room on top of each other in order to keep them grouped. Once you begin unloading your trailer, ensure that each box is taken to the appropriate room so to save having to move all the boxes multiple times.

Bonus tip!
Declutter as you pack! If you have boxes that are full of knickknacks or mounds of old clothes that no longer fit, go through them and toss/donate what you do not need. This will lessen how much you have to unpack AND it will help give your new home a fresh and clutter free start!

Do you have any go-to packing tips that have made moving easier for you? Share them on a comment below!