I’m Jasmine Roth, founder of Built Custom Homes, curator of my online retail store The Shop by Jasmine Roth, and host of HGTV’s hit shows Hidden Potential and HELP! I Wrecked My House. I was also on HGTV’s Season 1 of Rock the Block, but I won’t spoil the winner for you 😉 Building custom homes is my bread and butter and I love finding ways to make homes as personal, functional and beautiful as possible. Whether I’m exploring my TV projects, or sharing secret pro tips for everything from design to entertaining and cooking, I’m here to help you build Your Happy Home. Let’s build something together!
As some of you know, Brett, Hazel and I just moved into our new house, and it was a pretty stress-free experience (as far as moving goes) because of some tricks we did along the way. So to help you all (and to remember for myself!), I wanted to put together a list of all the best moving tips that we implemented!
Because we definitely had a “what NOT to do” comparison as we prepared for our move… You see, Brett’s mom moved a few years ago and it took her forever – even though she was just moving down the street! Why did it take her weeks to move? First off, she used some randomly sized boxes that she got in the mail, and they also didn’t close properly. So these boxes couldn’t be stacked.
Then she decided not to hire movers and just took stuff over to her new house in truckloads. What would have taken movers a few hours took her weeks! So, sorry Betsy, but we learned a few things from that experience (love you!) 😉
I’m sharing our favorite tips from this move in hopes that we can save you guys from a headache next time you need to move.
There’s a reason why companies make boxes specifically for moving! When you move, whether you use your own truck or a moving truck, you’ll need to stack the boxes to efficiently move more things in fewer trips. We bought actual moving boxes from Home Depot and it made packing (and stacking) super easy.
Speaking of making packing super easy, that’s precisely what a tape gun does. Game changer!
It seems like an unnecessary thing, but wow, having a hand truck to help with moving stacks of boxes or other heavy stuff makes a huge difference. Truck rental places (like U-Haul) usually let you rent one of these, too!
One of the things that’s been hard for us in the past is when you move out of your old kitchen and to a new kitchen, you don’t know where anything is. In your old kitchen you knew where everything was like the back of your hand, but in your new kitchen you’ll find yourself opening every drawer just to find a spatula because the layout is different.
So before we even moved the stuff into the kitchen and unpacked the boxes, we wrote all of our kitchen contents out on Post-It notes (i.e. glassware, pantry items, plates, etc.). Then we moved the Post-Its around like puzzle pieces until the organization made sense to us.THEN we moved all our stuff into the kitchen, and I kid you not, it took us maybe 20 minutes to unpack everything.
I posted a picture on social media a few days ago and I got a lot of questions about the orange squares in my kitchen. We’ve left them up even though the kitchen is unpacked to help us remember where everything is! Now Brett and I aren’t opening every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen every time we need to find something. And trust me, with a baby in the house, finding things easier is always helpful! Probably one of my best moving tips ever! And if you need even further organization help, be sure to read my favorite kitchen organization tips here!
I’m a big note-taker. I’ve actually used the same brand of notebook since I was in high school. I know what I like! Anyway, throughout our moving process, from planning to packing and organizing, I was taking notes. There can be a lot of ideas and details floating around your head, and it never hurts to keep track of it all in one place.
We did not want to use the truckload-by-truckload method. Not with a new baby to take care of! We were really happy we decided to hire movers because they had the right materials to make our move seamless and easy.
Outside of the Post-It thing, label all your boxes! Try to identify where things are going once they get to your new destination so there isn’t a big box pile-up somewhere inconvenient.
Sure, even if you hire movers, you can take stuff in your car (this only applies if you’re moving locally, like I did). This car load is best served for plants and other awkward or delicate stuff you don’t want to be moved by movers. Take that laundry basket and load it up with your precious plants! Take your decorative baskets and fill them with well-wrapped mementoes. We all have that one weird decorative thing that can only be transported safely by wrapping it in beach towels, putting it in a basket, and driving it somewhere carefully. Trust me!
So tell me what are YOUR best moving tips?! Any secrets that I should keep in mind for the next move?
I moved last Tuesday, wish I read your blog prior to the move but Great device Jasmine! Keep us posted with all your updates to your new home & many happy memories for you and your family in your “forever” home!
May sound silly, we had bags of clothing ready to go to Goodwill. I looked at all my China, stemware, and crystal…looked at the bags of clothes and then started to wrap all the fragile items in those clothes. I could wrap to my hearts content. When we unwrapped our belongings, we put the clothes back into bags (and even rescued a few of those Goodwill clothes ?) Out they went to Goodwill ?
Where have you been 5 years Ago? Huashuashuas
I took almost a week to organize my bedroom.
I remodeled my kitchen last year. I also used the post-it note method. It worked so well! I also rented plastic bins from a local company called Piggy Boxes. With the bins, came a dolly to move the bins. It was well worth the cost. I numbered each bib and used a notebook to write down what was in each bin. Smoothest move ever!
Yes, Moving is really stressful job. I love the tips that you have shared here with us. These tips will definitely help in moving. Keep posting…
My tip is for your hanging clothes.. take a large trash bag (33gal) and bag your clothes from the bottom up and tie the bag handles around your hangers. Your clothes stay clean and it makes it easy to hang in the closet. Then keep your bags for all later trash loads ! I have used this method for moving my kids off to college and across the country. XO
We moved two years ago, every box we packed was labeled on the outside and numbered. My husband was able to store everything at his workplace, if I needed anything I let him know what number box it was in and we were able to prioritize when we made the final move
I learned this from my Mom…the last things on the moving truck are your beds, bedding and vacuum. They are then the first things off and ready to set up for a good first night’s sleep in new home.
Bubble wrap is great, but you have to use packing paper for those fragile items like dishes, china, & glassware. Make sure there isn’t any movement in the cartons before tapping up your fragile pieces.
Jasmine we are on the same page I actually did all those things last June moving from Portland OR to AZ???worked like a charm
We used the kitchen post it notes when moving mom to her assisted living apartment. I took her over the day before the move, and we “discussed” where she wanted things. Stuck up labels and left for the day. On moving day, it helped my sister-in-laws in putting things away while I was still persuading mom that she would be living there! Laughable now, not so much at the time.
The label tips are so great! We’re personal organizers and tell our clients the same thing, label label label, because once it’s in a box, it’s a mystery.
One time we sold our house, but didn’t have a new house yet, so we rented an apartment for 5 months while we kept looking. Actually the apartment wasn’t even available until 3 days after our last day in the house we sold, so we bunked at my parents for a few days. This was for a family of (4) with two college aged daughters who also moved back and forth to college during this period as well! This situation was a massive moving experience that lasted for months, but was extremely organized again using post-its! So we rented (3) different storage units, each box having a different post-it color for the unit it went to, as well as keeping a master inventory list of every box and item in every unit. This was necessary because the units were at 3 different local self-storage places, meaning different moving truck runs, all so we could get the best online prices with free 1st months rent, etc.
Unit #1 was “Apartment Storage” things that would be moved into the apartment for a max 5 months and would be emptied out in a few days when the apartment was ready. Unit #2 was “Short Term Storage” meaning it wasn’t a required item for the apartment, but we might realize we needed it once we got there. An example was Christmas decorations. I thought I would skip decorating that year, but changed my mind and off to short-term storage I went. Unit #3 was “Long Term Storage” meaning all the things that would wait for the new house.
As luck would have it, we found a house and the move in date overlapped with the end of our lease by only 3 weeks. So we used that time to do some renovations (Ahem, let’s completely gut and remodel the kitchen, why not?) The funny thing is once we lived without all that “Long Term Storage” for 5 months, when we moved out of the unit, about half of it was mostly sold off or donated.
Front door color please!!
Front door color please!