20 Essential Tips for Packing before a Move
Here’s a list of several packing tips that you may not have considered before. When it comes to packing, you can add up as many tips as you can to your own list to ensure that the procedure goes smoothly and effectively.
1) First off, prepare enough packing supplies before you begin packing. You wouldn’t want to stop in the middle of a packing session just to gather more supplies.
2) Make sure that packed boxes weigh less than 50 pounds.
3) Heavier items should be packed on the bottom.
4) Stuff small fabric items such as socks and pillow cases in spaces and crevices in boxes. But don’t forget to keep those pairs of socks together!
5) Ensure that each box closes properly. Seal all boxes to keep the tops flat. Don’t over-pack a box to avoid damaging the contents.
6) Use small boxes in packing small items and then you can put them together into a large box. Remember to label each box, whether small or big.
7) Transfer liquids to a sealable container or tape them down to secure the lid. Then, put them into a waterproof bag. Seal it and position it upright into a box. The bag should be marked with arrows. Also, mark it with “This End Up.”
8.) Make sure you know which items are not allowed to move. These are items that your movers may not move.
9) Create an inventory list of all boxes, including their contents. An inventory is quite important in case any item gets damaged or lost and you have to make a claim.
10) Put clothing items in your dresser drawers.
11) Label your essentials box with “load last, unload first.” This box contains all the essentials you will need while traveling to your destination and upon reaching it.
12) Take valuable records with you. Don’t move them along with your other household belongings. You can send them in advance through a secure courier company, if it’s not possible to take these documents with you in the car.
13) Tape down items that shift or move, this will make your Chicago Movers less likely to create damage.
14) Fill free spots or empty spaces with lighter linens.
15) If possible, keep things in their original boxes.
16) Tape loose items such as bolts and screws to the underside of furniture but make sure that they are bagged first.
17) Tools for reassembling furniture should be kept in a different box with proper marking. You may want to keep an all-purpose screwdriver in your car’s glove compartment.
18) Avoid using standard garbage bags. They are easy to rip and tear. Buy the thicker, heavy ones to make sure none of them will burst open during the move. Certain moving companies don’t want their customers to use garbage bags, so ask before packing up. Limit the number of garbage bags you use when packing.
19) As much as possible, pack and arrange items from the same room together. This way, things will be easier to sort after the move is done.
20) Let everybody in the family participate in the preparation process by creating a task list. Divide the jobs and delegate appropriate tasks to each person. Your children can sort through their stuff and pack simple items. Organize your household to save time, effort and money. By assigning tasks to each family member, everyone will feel that they’re part of the adventure.
Get started as early as you can! With the help of these tips, you can successfully hurdle the packing process.
Business and Office Move Checklist – 15 Important Tasks to Do When Moving
Moving preparations for office and business moves are sometimes much more complicated than household moves. The key to a successful move is preparing well and also, making sure that everything included in your list is complete and essential. Here’s a brief checklist to guide you in moving your office:
1. Decide a specific time frame for the preparation process and moving schedule
2. To let suppliers, customers and other related people know about the move, be sure to set up a communications plan.
3. Create a full list of tasks that need to be done and assign these to individuals
4. If you’re moving a bigger company, come up with a moving committee that will help in organizing the move and keeping the move on track
5. Make sure to inform all employees and let them get involved in the moving process. They should know their respective roles, such as packing their own office or cubicle.
6. Decide on the new look and set-up of your office. You should know early where offices will be situated and which places the equipment should be installed
7. Compare moving quotes from several companies. Don’t forget to check references and book your selected movers.
8. Call your present service providers to let them know about the move. Ensure that your new providers know about the exact installation dates including postal service, Internet access, hydro, fax, telephone lines, etc.
9. If you need special technical assistance for moving and installing equipment like computer network and photocopier, ensure that you book these ahead in time so that the required service is available on your moving day.
10. Establish a concrete packing schedule. Determine which things should be packed in advance and which ones should get packed last.
11. Buy all necessary moving-related things such as packing supplies and appropriate boxes.
12. Give clear packing instructions to your employees or to professional packers. Ensure that each and every box is packed properly and labeled with corresponding information like content, importance, and office location.
13. Prepare furniture for the moving process. Label every item to make sure they are moved to the right area of the new space. You can label or number areas of your new office space on a blueprint map. Provide the movers with a copy of this map so they know the right places for things, including packed boxes.
14. Double-check if all equipment have been prepared well for moving and removable parts are also packed and labeled. If necessary, remove any liquids. However, if you’re not familiar with the right procedure of packing equipment, you can opt to hire a technical specialist or contact the manufacturer of the equipment for some packing advice.
15. To avoid extra fees, ask beforehand where the moving truck can possibly park for loading at the old office location and similarly, where it can unload at the new place. Inform businesses nearby about your move, especially if you’ll have to block entrances or take more parking spaces.
If you are looking for professional Chicago Office Movers, give New City Moving a call at 800-733-6644!
Tips for Loading the Moving Truck in Chicago
So you have already booked a moving truck and you’ve also finished packing your household goods. The next thing to do now is to think about moving day. You may want to carefully plan about how to load the truck. It’s always good to plan ahead on how to load your moving truck.
If you’re quite detailed and organized about things, you can go through your house and take note of the order through which items get loaded. Create a list and group boxes of similar sizes. This way, moving day will go smoothly and quickly.
The heaviest and largest things should be moved first, including appliances like washing machine, refrigerator, stove and items that require two or more people to move. You should load these items on the truck before everything else and try to place them against the far wall nearest to the cab. They should be positioned upright. Ensure that the truck is balanced by putting heavy objects on opposite sides.
To protect corners and wood surfaces, better use furniture padding which you can rent from the truck rental company. This padded protection will help you slide heavier things more easily onto the truck.
The next items you should move would be the longer items such as mattresses, box springs, headboards, long mirrors, sofas, etc. Put them against the truck’s longest walls to keep them upright and to save some space. Don’t forget to utilize mattress covers to avoid any rips and tears on your bed and sofa.
Disassemble bed frames and then tape the pieces together. The same should be done for longer items like poles and skis. When rolling up your carpets, put these items inside before taping your carpet closed. Put the carpet on the truck’s floor.
Next, load the biggest and heaviest boxes. Put them on top of your furniture and appliances. Fill any gaps and spaces under desks, tables, and on chair seats.
Lighter boxes should be transferred and stacked on the heavier ones, ensuring that they are put on top.
The last things to be put inside are fragile items and those with awkward shapes. Make sure that they will not shift around during the move.
With the help of these tips, hopefully you can plan your move properly and avoid confusion and hassles when loading your truck on moving day.
Last Minute Moving Tips – How to Sort and Pack Quickly
Typically, the ideal preparation time for most people when moving is a minimum of eight weeks. This involves all the necessary planning and packing. However, sometimes last-minute moves occur and people need to move in just four weeks or so. If you’re stuck in this situation and you need to move immediately, here are some useful tips to help you quickly sort and pack all of your household items.
How to Sort Your Stuff
Get rid of unnecessary things. Perhaps a great benefit with last-minute moves is that people tend to be careless about how they sort through their things. Well, this basically means that you can get rid lots of useless things since you don’t have enough time to think about whether you should keep possessions which you don’t really need but somewhat have a sentimental value. If you’re hiring professional movers, lesser stuff equals lesser charges. Plus, you’d require less time and effort in packing and moving them. So, get rid as much as you can!
Go through every room and try to separate your belongings into three piles. The first one will be the ones to keep; the second one for the ones to donate; and the last pile for stuff to toss. If there’s anything you haven’t actually used for a year, just toss it or give it away. Let your family, and also the kids, participate in the sorting process. They can follow this rule when sorting through their stuff. Tip: if you’re hesitating whether to toss or keep something, just toss it!
Call for Help
When it seems like everything else is too much to handle on your own, call for help! This will make things easier and faster. There are three types of help you can seek: from friends, family, and service companies. Family and friends will probably be ready to help you out in the packing process. Create a list of tasks that you will assign to them before enlisting their support.
Professional packers can do the job easily for you, if you feel that you can’t pack things properly. They can pack all of your household items in a safe and secure way. You can save yourself from headaches and wasting time, although you need to pay the corresponding price. Since hiring packers can be expensive, contact them in advance to ask about the rates before inviting them to your home.
There are also other services available to help you such as pick-up companies, whose job is to gather and dispose of junk for you. Again, call a company beforehand to know about the charges.
Additionally, most charities will be willing to pick up your to-be-donated stuff. If you have compiled a large donation heap or if you’re giving away some nice furniture, you can ask a non-profit organization to pick up the things for you. This will save you time and energy. Contact them and set up a date and time. Some charities pick up items only on particular dates and locations so ask before booking.
Start Packing
So, now that you have gotten rid of unwanted stuff the next step is packing, of course. Gather enough packing supplies. It’s good to utilize used boxes for the packing procedure but since you’re running out of time already, you might just as well purchase new boxes and packing supplies from any office supply shop or a moving company. Alternatively, if you’re about to move locally, try to look for a green mover who can supply you some plastic bins for packing. Generally, companies will be willing to drop off the required bins on a date that you desire, and they will pick up the bins after you’ve done unpacking and moving. It’s quite convenient, actually.
Be sure to pack fragile items securely if you decide to pack on your own or hire Chicago Movers such as New City Moving and choose our professional packing services.
Tricky Things to Pack and Move
Packing things up is a long and tedious process, and things can get more difficult when you come across several tricky items that need to be packed. Clothes and bric-a-brac may seem fine, but there are just some things that are complex to pack. If you need to pack fragile items, its probably best to hire professional Chicago Movers. Here is a random list of top five tricky things to pack:
• Pianos – Pianos are definitely tricky to move for a number of reasons. They’re heavy whether you have an upright piano or grand one. More importantly, they’re heavy plus fragile, not to mention considerably expensive too.
• Fragile things – Fine china and glassware specially require extra caution. You need to be very careful when packing these things or you might end up getting heartbroken when you find broken plates and jagged glass shards inside the boxes upon arriving at your new home.
• Plants – Plants can also be tricky to relocate. Compared to garden plants, potted plants are somewhat easier to handle but still, transporting them is tough. Just ensure that they are kept alive during the travel, especially on long trips. It’s not a good idea to just put them in a box and go.
• Trees – In case you’re wondering why trees are separately mentioned (considering that they’re plants too), well they’re actually quite tricky to move. First of all, you may not even have thought that trees can be moved, right? You can move them, regardless of the size; however, you need to hire a professional tree mover to do the job. And of course, it can get a lot more expensive the bigger the tree is.
• Books – Now, who would have thought that packing books can actually be tricky? Well, actually they’re not that tricky to pack; just that since these things are not very big, a lot of people get tempted to just stack them all together in one large box, which you may find quite difficult to carry. So, better pack those books right and put them separately in several smaller boxes.
So, now that you have an idea of some of the trickiest items to move, it would be good to take the necessary preparation in the earliest possible time. If you need to hire movers, start collecting company names and making comparisons to get the best one that can handle your possessions safely and securely. Contact us at New City Moving for free quotes. Consider us when you need a Chicago Moving Company to pack your fragile items.
Steps in Moving a Mattress
Compared to old standard mattresses, the newer, thicker ones are more comfortable to use; however, in terms of moving, they’re actually more difficult to handle. If you’re baffled about how to move your pillow top mattress, here are some effective tips and suggestions to help you out.
How you should prepare your mattress will be dependent on your method of moving it. If you plan to secure it to your vehicle’s roof, store it for a certain length of time, or have it shipped by a mover along with the rest of your belongings, then you should wrap it in thick plastic in order to provide sufficient protection from any damages. Alternatively, you can also buy a mattress bag from a moving company. Moving a mattress by placing it on your car’s roof is actually possible, but it depends on the size of your mattress and the surface area of the vehicle’s roof.
Things You Need:
• Thick mattress or plastic bag
• Ropes
• Strong packing tape or duct tape
• Sharp scissors
• Work gloves
For this process, you’ll need an extra pair of hands to help you out. To secure the mattress, the first step is wrapping it in plastic. Make sure to tape down any extra plastic since the wind may rip it easily if not secured well.
For the next step, you need to prepare enough rope. Wrap the rope around the mattress’ length for at least three times (first long piece). Then, wrap the rope around the width of the mattress for about three times (second long piece). This should provide you with sufficient rope to tie the ends.
Put the mattress on the center of the roof. The rope’s first long piece should then be tossed over the length of the mattress. Make sure that there’s enough for securing one end under your vehicle’s front and for securing the second end under the back of your vehicle. The rope should be tied tightly and the knots on both ends should be secure.
Open all windows of your car, except for the one at the driver’s side. Toss the second piece of rope’s one end over the width of the mattress, and then loop it back by passing it through the open windows. After doing this a couple of times, you can tie the two ends of the rope together inside your car. The driver’s side should be left free of rope to allow the car’s passengers to escape in case of an emergency.
Please view our website for more bedroom packing tips.
How to Label Your Moving Boxes Properly
Labeling is one of the most essential tasks in a moving process that you shouldn’t neglect when hiring movers in Chicago. It’s relatively simple and it’s quite useful in avoiding frustrating inconveniences. If you try to put yourself in the movers position for a second, you can definitely empathize with the hardship they go through with every moving procedure. At times, when they are forced to deal with bunches of unmarked boxes, they get perplexed as to where these stuff should be placed in the new home. Consequently, they have to ask you and chances are you’ll barely remember the things you’ve put inside each box. Thus, to avoid such nuisance, you should spare a little bit of your time to label your boxes properly.
In addition, the movers will also be able to know how to handle your boxes. For example, if you have certain boxes with the mark “fragile”, then they will be placed on top of heavier, non-fragile boxes and will be dealt with more cautiously. This is very important to avoid breakages and damages.
Here are the things you can include when labeling your boxes:
• The room where the box will go in
• The contents of each box such as cookware and kitchen utensils, DVDs and entertainment things, pictures, etc.
• “Fragile” or “Handle With Care” specifications for those boxes containing fragile and sensitive objects
• “Do Not Move” labels for boxes you intend to take with you inside your car
• “Pack Last” labels for any boxes you will need immediately in your new house (these items are the first to go unloaded, since your movers will pack them last)
Use big permanent markers with black or dark tints when labeling. You can write on the top of the boxes and on the sides as well. Prepare at least two markers so you can have a spare one, in case the other one runs out of ink. Additionally, you might want to consider color-coding the labels. This helps in distinguishing the items more easily. You can mark each room with a different color. Stickers with varying colors are also preferable, or you could just write out the labels using permanent markers in assorted colors.
Quick, Easy Tips for Packing Pots and Pans
For many kitchen lovers, pots and pans are indispensable cookware. If you are a cooking enthusiast yourself and you’re about to move in to a new home, you probably want to bring those kitchen utensils and cookware with you. It’s not an entirely difficult task, although it’s important that you follow the right process in doing the packaging. In this article, you’ll learn the essential steps in packing cookware.
The operative word here is “nesting” which primarily refers to the procedure of stacking and wrapping items simultaneously. This process involves taking three pans or pots of various sizes. Set the biggest one down at the center of a sheet of packing paper. Then, fold the paper up and over the edges of the pan/pot. Set the second biggest item in the middle of the pan/pot that you just wrapped. Finally, wrap both of these items in the same manner as the first.
For these seemingly heavy items, medium-sized boxes are most suitable. These hollow boxes have most spaces filled with air, hence the nesting. You have to ensure that the bottom of the box is taped properly before you begin placing the items in there. Then, pack them on their sides. Fill the empty space with crushed packing paper for cushioning. For complete and detailed information on this, we’re offering you the full guide we have written specifically about this subject. In no time, you can continue to enjoy loud cooking in your new home.
Check out website for more kitchen moving tips!
Moving Food the Right Way
What do you think is the most significant thing you’ll need after the moving process? Well, it could very much likely be food. If you’re like most people, you probably love to eat or snack. What else can make us energetic and lively if not the food that fuels our body? Of course, water is just as important but let’s admit it, food is simply delectable. In fact, in U.S alone, innumerable people eat frequently just out of boredom.
Chances are, when you arrive at your new home, you’ll go food shopping. But there might be several things from your old house which you don’t want to throw out. Non-perishables are quite easy to pack. Just wrap them up using good packing materials and place them inside a sturdy box. You can use small boxes for heavy things such as cans and jars. As for light items like cereal boxes, bigger boxes would be fine.
It may not be possible to bring perishables with you if you’re moving over a long distance. For a short trip though, you can put your stuff in a cooler with ice and you’re good to go. However, it’s not going to last if your trip takes longer than three to four hours because the food may get spoiled along the way. You wouldn’t want to contract salmonella and get food poisoning, of course. It’s recommended that you eat those items in advance or give them away.
If you’re thinking twice about bringing certain things, it would best to leave the unnecessary ones. In a worst-case scenario, you’ll end up throwing those things away once you get to your new place. And if you have limited space, just get rid of them. Also, if you are considering disposing of any food, please contact a local food bank that will accept donations.
How to Move Items in a Shed or Garage Effectively
Typically, a shed or garage is filled with things that people wouldn’t traditionally pack up in boxes. If you’re going to move to a new house anytime soon, you may have suddenly thought about how to pack these things up. It sounds pretty difficult and perhaps that’s the reason why you’ve searched about this topic and ended up reading this article. Well, the good news is you can successfully move items in your shed or garage in the most effective way possible.
• Essentially, a good rule of thumb is to put any power tools back in the cases they came with when you bought them. These cases can protect the tools well since they are designed for providing protection after all. You can keep other loose tools in a toolbox. Stuff some packing paper inside the toolbox to keep the items from shifting or moving around.
• Pack your loose and garden tools of similar length together in a bundle, along with twine.
• Wrap anything greasy in shrink wrap before using packing paper. Additionally, pack heavy things like loose tools in small boxes.
• Properly dispose of all corrosive, poisonous, or flammable items.
• Fully drain oil and gas out of weed whackers, lawnmowers, etc.
• You can use hardware bag or coffee can as containers of hardware. Wrap these hardware in packing paper first, and then packed in a small box.
Through these tips, you can pack up your garage items easily and efficiently.
Please view our website for more information on packing your garage.
We are proud members of:
Our Insurance Companies
We Accept
©2009 New City Moving Inc. IL ICC #158051: Terms of Use
2358 N. Damen Ave. Chicago, IL 60647