Moving on Up

We went for a walk through of the new house today to finalize everything before signing tomorrow.  It gave me this amazing fall-head-over-heels-in-love feeling.  I had to steal batteries from the remote to power my camera, but I wouldn’t let a little pesky power problem get in the way of snapping a picture of the new house. 

I feel so grateful to be able to move into this beauty and call it our own.  I am also a bit tearful (being the sentimental sap I am) to leave our first home in the metro area and our first house as hubby and wifey!

Anyhoo I thought I would share some packing tidbits with you guys and lessons we have learned in our fourth move together as a couple.  The first things we packed was the home decor and DIY projects and our once full floating shelf began to look more and more barren,

until it eventually looked like this (note the awesome air conditioning unit):

It was a sad moment when our first DIY project the hubby and I completed together came down.  And then our living room started looking like this:

And our boxes started looking like this:

We have gradually packed all our stuff up starting with the non-essential items, leaving the kitchen for last.  Obviously our planning skills aren’t that stellar because more than once we had to dig up something we desperately “needed” from the depths of the garage:

Initially we created “zones” in the garage clustering boxes with like items together.  We moved all the boxes from the house to a central location for easy loading, and by we I mean the hubby schlepped all the heavy stuff out the door while I focused on labeling.  Looking at the picture above you can tell that our cluster attempt was an epic fail and the boxes have now begun to mix all together.  The one strength we have going for us is our use of labels.  We learned from our last move everything was a mixed bag due to moving a month before our wedding, so this time we were I was a bit anal retentive on the labeling. 

We labeled not only what was in the box, but also what room it was to be moved into.  We are moving with the help of our family and this cuts down on the confusion of where the “serve ware/wine glasses/wine” box goes. 

We also utilized nontraditional items for packing.  We used our laundry hampers to tote throw pillows and blankets, packed up our suitcases, and used t-shirts as packing material. 

My favorite packing medium has traditionally been paper towels.  This can get expensive and after going through 9 paper towel rolls I had to start getting creative or risk breaking the bank.  This move we also used paper plates to separate and pack dishes and our antique china so the dishes do not rub together during the move. 

My last moving tidbit of advice is that you can get rid of your unwanted items with what I like to call the “blind grab bag”.  It is essential to have a friend, family member, or acquaintance who is in need of household items, most likely a college student.  The deal is that you get to give them all of your items you intend to donate in an all or nothing blind grab bag.  If they take it, they have to take it all - without looking. The fun part is they don’t know what surprises there are in store for them.  My husband’s size 14 sneakers? Check! An old CD player that only plays the radio but not CD’s that my husband tricked me into letting into the house? Check!  However, you have to put some good incentive pieces in there to spike their interest such as kitchen accessories, furniture, etc.  Then at the end they can decide if they want to donate the weird stuff or keep it.  Either way you have all your donate items taken off your hands at no hassle and some college kids get some awesome freebies! Winning…..duh!