Have you ever organized apartment moving? Moving from an old apartment to a new one? Or maybe you moved to another city or even country? If you answered yes to at least one of these questions, then you know that it is difficult to survive a move without losses. Losses can be different - material or moral. In the worst case, both. Pack, agree, don’t forget, warn, transport, pay, settle, draw conclusions.
Of course, if you are not constrained by finances, you can entrust the organization of apartment moving to professionals. There are moving companies that will take care of all the hassle of moving. If you want to save money and organize an inexpensive move, then do it yourself. And my advice will help you save not only money, but also nerves.
Preparatory stage. Purchasing materials necessary for apartment moving
Tara
- Must be purchased or begged at the store boxes, various sizes. Just don’t take big ones - when filled with things, large boxes become too heavy to lift.
- Construction waste bags. They are inexpensive but very durable.
- Garbage bags. Preferably too different sizes And different colors(I'll explain why later).
- Shuttle bags. A good option for those who move frequently. The bags are durable, come in different sizes, and when folded do not take up much space.
- Suitcases, trunks for clothes.
For package
- Scotch. Buy a lot. It can even be colored for marking.
- Despenser– holder for tape. Buy it, you won't regret it. It greatly simplifies and speeds up the process of packing things.
- Masking tape. It can be used, but it can break at the most inopportune moment. Use with caution!
- Packaging film (stretch film)– a very good thing for packaging. Easy to use and versatile.
- Old newspapers– what would it be like without them? 🙂
For marking
- Colored markers or felt-tip pens.
- Stickers, colored paper.
For the accounting
- Notepad or notebook.
- Pen.
- Maybe computer, printer– to be safe, duplicate your entries.
In a new place
- If you know where you will be moving and have access there, then you need to prepare new housing. Arm yourself and wash everything you can. Cleaning an empty room is much easier than cleaning one filled with boxes, bags and furniture. Make sure everything works in your new place - electricity (check light bulbs), plumbing, etc.
- Think about what and where will be placed in the new apartment (house). To place furniture on the move when moving permanent place and don't move anymore. You can even draw a schematic plan so that on the day of moving you don’t forget in the turmoil the arrangement of things you have thought up.
Before packing
- Sort your clothes into seasonal ones that you wear now and those that you can safely pack away and not remember in the near future.
- It is best if you transport only clean items. Those. Before packing, wash and clean everything that needs it.
- By the way, you probably have some gifts (G) that you couldn’t get rid of (well, you don’t like them, you don’t have a soul for them) without offending the giver (mother-in-law or mother-in-law, close friend or girlfriend). Now is a very good time for a gift to be “broken”, “lost” or “crashed”:-O. It may not be good to do this, but tolerating what you don’t like is also not good. the best option(H) .
- Moving is the most best time for the so-called “decluttering” or getting rid of unnecessary, unloved things. Take this chance, make room for something more necessary and desirable. To do this, you need to start packing your things in advance.
And if you follow a few simple packing principles, you will find everything you need quickly and easily in your new place. 
Marking
Number everything: boxes, bags, bags, furniture parts. It is advisable that the number be visible from all sides. Then you won't have to tumble the box or package to see the number.
In a notebook or notebook, write down a detailed list of the things in this container. Now you remember what you are packing in box No. 5. And in a week you won’t even be able to tell approximately what is in it. Duplicate your entries - one list directly in the box or bag, leave the other in a notebook.
You can also pack things based on their old location. For example, “Box #5 is the top drawer of the hallway closet.” This will make the job easier when unfolding. Write a detailed list anyway. Because you can remember that the item was in the closet, but forget which drawer it was in. And these are different boxes.
When unloading in a new place, it is best to immediately bring things from the kitchen, for example, into the kitchen, and things from the living room to the living room. Or according to the scheme that you created.
There is an easy way to achieve this result
Assign each room its own color code - kitchen - green, living room - red, bedroom - blue. Place a sticker of the appropriate color on boxes, bags, and units. The day before you move into your new apartment, stick their color code on the doors of all rooms. Now those who will carry things will immediately understand where to carry what. Of course, you first need to instruct the wearers about the meaning of the colored pieces of paper on the boxes and on the doors.
In parallel with packing your things, do not forget to deal with the so-called “paper” matters. It is possible to terminate the contract, transfer mail to a new address, check out of the old apartment and register in a new place, transfer the children to a new school, kindergarten, etc.
Packing things
- Pack books and dishes in the smallest boxes. If the boxes are too big, then combine them with rags (clothes, towels).
- Books can be tied in small stacks. To keep books clean, pack such stacks in trash bags. Or stack the books in a trash bag and wrap them with tape on top.
- When tying boxes and bags with tape, immediately make a handle. This will make it very easy to carry. Instead of one box, you can take two at once. By the way, small furniture (bedside table, disassembled furniture) can also be equipped with handles made of adhesive tape.
- Scotch tape has one very unpleasant drawback - it leaves marks on furniture. To prevent this from happening, you need to put something under the tape. Packaging film is very suitable for this task. After wrapping the furniture a couple of times with film, you can secure it with tape on top.
- By the way, dishes should be wrapped in paper (plates sandwiched) and then in film. Then it will not rattle or move.
- Items must be packed tightly into boxes. If voids form, they must be filled with either rags or paper.
- Be sure to put warning labels on boxes containing breakable or fragile items: “Caution, fragile!”, “Glass!”
- Furniture that can be disassembled is better disassembled. Pin the parts together, number them, write them down in a notebook, and make carrying handles. Place all the bolts and screws in a bag (be sure to sign). Place all such bags in a separate box. The option of attaching bags to disassembled furniture is not suitable. There is a high probability of losing everything during transportation.
- Various devices for moving large furniture are very useful. Read about them in the article.
- When packing trash items, select bags of the same color, and use these bags only for trash. Otherwise, you can confuse packed items with “throw away” bags.
- Pack bags “for the first time” so as not to rummage through many boxes, bags and bags in search of a blouse or toothbrush. To make it easier to understand what to put in these bags, imagine that you are going on a family trip for two weeks. Add more essential utensils, bed sheets, household chemicals and tools. If you have pets, don't forget to take care of them.
Moving day
- Note! If you hire people to transport furniture and things based on an advertisement in the newspaper, then be sure to supervise the loading, accompany them to the new location and supervise the unloading. There were cases when things were “lost” on the road and even the transport did not reach its destination.
- If you have small children or large animals, then on the day of moving it is better if they find themselves on neutral territory, and not on the site of “combat operations”. Involve relatives, friends, neighbors. Don't refuse help.
If you have children school age(or older), then they can be recruited to work. There will always be something to move from small objects, to hold the door, to guard things at the entrance.
- Moving day is very eventful and physically difficult for everyone. Therefore, the housewife needs to take care of how and what to feed her workers (unless, of course, you hired workers from a moving company).
For snacks you can make sandwiches, pies or pizza. Fruit will be good. For hot periods, prepare plenty of cool drinks. In cold weather, a thermos with hot tea or coffee will come in handy.
After moving home, you won’t be able to breathe easy right away, but only when the last thing is taken out of the box, when all the boxes, bags and garbage leave your home. Then you can have a housewarming party.
Necessary clarification: unfortunately, we are not going to talk about how it is easier to run over a person. These are tips for those who are moving to a new home and don’t know where to start. Sorry if you disappointed.
Alexander Kanygin
If we ignore the hassle, the eternal lack of time and movers stuck in traffic jams, moving is just the movement of things from one point in space to another. In a way, drinking beer with friends is the closest analogy to moving: you simply move it from your mug to your stomach. Let this thought calm you down when it turns out that you left the TV in old apartment.
Two months before moving
Time is the main enemy. Due to its lack, something can be forgotten, lost, broken. Therefore, you need to prepare for migration to a new place in advance.
█ Buy a large folder and a notebook for notes (maybe with a unicorn on the cover). You will write down all the information about the move in a notebook, and in a folder you will store business cards, checks and other documents related to the move, as well as telephone numbers and names of workers, drivers, realtors, tenants and buyers of old things. Even if the contacts of a painter or electrician now seem superfluous, let them also be in the notebook. What if everything is not so perfect in the new place?
█ Get 20 cardboard boxes. When folded, they will not take up much space, but this amount should be enough for the entire move. Boxes suitable for carrying and storing things are found in the following places:
grocery stores- this is the most a budget option, you just need to come up from the back door and ask to sell you the extra packaging;
IKEA furniture stores- here are durable carton boxes cost 40–50 rubles per piece;
moving companies- there are special people there who are ready to take on all the difficulties of moving for a certain amount. As a rule, quite a big one. But you will find boxes of all possible shapes and color sizes.
█ There should be plenty of bags, newspapers, packaging film with bubbles and colorful stickers, especially since they can be useful after the move. Also buy two or three markers so you can write on different surfaces.
█ Don’t skimp on tape! It can be used to secure everything under the sun (our experts, who have been glued to chairs and walls at parties more than once, will confirm this). And stock up on a dispenser for adhesive tape - it will make packaging go much faster.
A month before moving
Moment of truth: you want to take everything with you. However, there suddenly turns out to be an indecent amount of things, as if they had been saving them not for 30 years, but for ninety years, and even borrowed from neighbors.
█ Use the rule that we have already written about: if the item has not been used more than a year, most likely, it is not needed. Take a photo of the item and place an advertisement on the website for sale or gift on a pick-up basis.
█ It is better to disassemble furniture for transportation. It turns out that old chipboard cabinets are unlikely to survive this procedure and it will definitely not be possible to assemble them in a new place: the screws will not want to fit tightly into the holes. It would be better to offer this junk to your neighbors - let them take it to their dacha or feed it to the beavers.
█ Collect documents in one folder and put it in the same folder where you put checks, business cards, etc. If you still have instructions from home electronics, this is a chance to throw them away, they are still available on the Internet.
█ Start packing your things. Remember that heavily loaded boxes have a habit of losing their bottom at the most unexpected moment, so it’s a good idea to add bulky but light blankets or pillows to heavy books, for example.
Two weeks before moving
█ It is tempting to invite friends to help. This, of course, is great, but the move risks turning into a fun drinking session with a random ending, and you will have to blame yourself for a broken iron. We recommend using the services of professional carriers (available on the Internet). And in general, after you have said goodbye to student life, inviting friends for repairs, moving and meeting at the airport is a shame.
█ You will have to enter into an agreement with the moving company, according to which it bears full financial responsibility for items damaged during transportation.
█ On the websites of some carrier companies there are convenient calculators for calculating all services, including packaging, delivery and rental of transport. But the final cost will still need to be clarified: non-obvious factors may arise, such as “lifting a piano to the 15th floor without an elevator.”
█ If you already had experience communicating with the carrier company, you should have kept the telephone number of the team leader. Call him and try to agree to do the work bypassing the cash register. In this case, the money will go directly into the pockets of the movers and the price will be approximately 50% lower, but you will not enter into a formal contract.
█ Prepare stickers for all areas of the home: kitchen, bedroom, operating room. Each one will require stickers of a different color, on which you will write down the contents of the boxes.
Moving to another apartment is both a joyful and frightening event. To prevent it from turning your life into a protracted nightmare, the issue of moving should be approached with special responsibility.
1. It’s best to start moving 2-3 weeks before the date when you need to leave the apartment, then you won’t have to frantically search for and collect all your things. Think in advance about how exactly you will transport your things: gradually and in small parts, or hire a cargo gazelle and take everything out at once.
2. Also think in advance about how exactly you will pack your things. Stock up on bags, bubble wrap and boxes (by the way, boxes can be taken at any grocery store, often they are not needed there and they are given away just like that). Clothes and home textiles can be put in bags, but fragile, breakable items are best placed in a box, first wrapped in film.
3. If you have to transport large items when moving household appliances(fridge, washing machine, etc.) then find large boxes and polystyrene in advance. This is necessary in order not to damage the equipment during transportation and protect it from scratches.
4. When packing items in boxes and bags, sort them carefully. Try to get rid of things you no longer need. Don't be afraid to throw away everything old and unnecessary.
5. It is best to pack things that you will not need soon (warm winter jackets, sleds, etc.) first. This way you will save yourself from constantly “assembling and disassembling” clothes.
6. If you are planning to move to another city and there is simply no point in taking household appliances with you, then take care in advance to sell them or give them to friends or acquaintances. Do the same with other not particularly necessary things.
7. Pack especially valuable items at the very beginning of the move and check their availability at the very end. It is best to carry them not in boxes, along with clothes, dishes and equipment, but in hand luggage.
Moving to new apartment- this is not only a pleasant change in life, but also a lot of hassle associated with transporting things: on the eve of the move, it usually turns out that there are too many things, and you need to not only collect them, but also transport them to your new home safe and sound. To avoid chaos and random rushing around the apartment trying to decide what and how to pack in the first place, it is necessary to approach the problem as systematically as possible.
Moving to a new apartment: what will you need?
First of all, you need to stock up on everything you need for packaging: you need cardboard boxes of different sizes (there are probably packages from household appliances, which for one reason or another have not yet been thrown away), a lot of paper and old newspapers to protect things from damage, bubble wrap, stretch film and duct tape.
If for some reason there are no boxes at home (or there are too few of them), then you can buy them both in specialized stores and at OBI or IKEA. If you don't want to spend money, you can simply approach the manager of a large supermarket and ask if you can borrow the boxes from them. In most cases, stores will gladly agree to give them to you for free.
If you have a lot of heavy things and you are afraid that simple tape will not be the most reliable method of fastening, then pay attention to special packaging plastic tape made of propylene: it has increased strength and is often used for transporting goods.
Getting rid of unnecessary things
Moving is an excellent reason to audit your supplies and throw out all unnecessary things: broken appliances that have accumulated on the mezzanine for years, unsuitable gifts, worn clothes, unnecessary papers, and so on. By decluttering, you will not only reduce the number of boxes, but also save on moving costs.
How to sort?
The motto of your move should be the words: “Systematic, systematic and once again systematic!” Before you start putting things in boxes, decide what you definitely won’t need in the near future: for example, if it’s summer outside, you can safely pack winter clothes.
Start packing with things that are on the farthest shelves and mezzanines: if you don’t keep them at hand at normal times, then you’re unlikely to need them urgently. Then you can stack the books, leaving one or two that you are currently reading. The next step is to collect clothes, and finally put away dishes and household appliances.
Place essential items in separate boxes: they may always be needed, so keep track of their location personally.
To avoid getting confused in numerous packages, label what is in each of them. Another option is to number the boxes, and in a separate notebook write down what items are hidden under the numbers.
If you are not confident in your abilities or are very busy, then many moving companies are ready to disassemble things for you: professionals will not only carefully arrange the items in boxes, but will also disassemble the furniture to make it easier to transport.
How to pack?
Now we have moved on to a very important point of moving - proper packaging. Of course, fragile objects or furniture parts are the first to be at risk. To avoid chips and cracks, take the time to pack each item in several layers of newspaper and wrap it with film on top.
Fragile items should be folded in dense rows: a vase or mirror should not dangle around the box during a trip, risking turning into a pile of fragments.
It is better to put heavy and fairly strong items in small boxes: ultimately, all this will have to be carried in your hands, so do not create unbearable loads.
Furniture, if it is collapsible, must be disassembled and all parts and fittings carefully packed. Tape bags with small handles, bolts and fasteners to the cabinet door or to the base of the sofa - this way they won’t get lost. Special attention Focus on surfaces that can easily be scratched or even broken.
Staged fees
Since there will most likely be a lot of things and the sorting process will take a long time, start sorting things out at least two weeks before the event. At the same time, buy everything you need for packaging and make a clear sorting plan.
In about a week, you can begin to disassemble the furniture - naturally, not the bed, but tables, chests of drawers and cabinets, the items from which have already been put into boxes. Agree with the movers: they can be called urgently, but it is better to compare offers from different companies in advance and select the ones that suit you.
The day before the movers arrive, start unplugging your household appliances. Don't forget to empty the refrigerator of food. This way, on the day of moving, all you have to do is pack the essentials: usually, due to the rush, everything goes awry, and you might actually forget something important.
From personal experience
In addition to general advice, it is also very important to find out the opinions of people who have recently experienced a move. That’s why we decided to talk to Yasha, whose family changed their apartment a few months ago.
“We sorted things very simply,” says Yasha. - Clothes for clothes, books for books. Many things, including furniture, were left in the old apartment: at first they wanted to just throw it away, but then they found friends who found all this useful.”
When asked how expensive the move was, Yasha replies that they managed to save on movers. “We were very lucky: our friends had a van, and we quickly transported all the things in one go, although there was a lot of them. We only paid for gasoline.”
“It would be better to spend this money on renovations in a new apartment,” our interlocutor said.
Digest of Kvartbog
Perhaps something from our digest will be useful to you before, during or after your move:
We share tips on how to free up space using stylish boxes and boxes -
How to get rid of unnecessary things for the benefit of yourself and others? We will tell you how to cleanse your living space, receiving real benefits, moral satisfaction and a big plus to your karma -
A cool questionnaire on how to disassemble a closet and some tips on organizing this event. Useful tips and tips from Kvartblog -
Marie Kondo's book was published in Russian at the end of August. Let's talk about order in the house -
Just a few simple tips will help you free up space in any closet -
Useful and effective tips from psychologist, health specialist, founder medical center in California Deepak Chopra on how to make your home “work for you” -
Interior designer Sophie Robinson talks in detail about how to create... rented apartment a real home -
Photos: www.moving.com, www.electrodry.com.au, www.blog.shurgard.co.uk, buymovingboxesonline.co.za.
Organize yourself. A move cannot be planned over a weekend. Always plan ahead and don't leave packing until the last day as you will have a lot of things you forgot to think about. Make sure all boxes are labeled correctly - this will save you a lot of time and stress during unpacking.
Get rid of old and unnecessary things. As you pack, you'll realize that you have a lot of things that you don't need or don't have room for. Don't throw them away, give them to those in need. This way, you will not only get rid of unnecessary things, but also help someone. You can always sell something, too.
Rent a van or truck. A nice empty apartment awaits you, but there is a problem - you need to somehow transport all your things there. If you or your friends don't have a van, you'll have to rent one. The demand for such services is quite high, so take care of this in advance. If you wait until the last minute, there is a chance that you simply won’t find a free car.
Get help. You should recruit an army of friends and family to help you move in exchange for pizza. But what to do if everyone is busy or away on business? If you don't like the idea of manually moving a bunch of boxes for an entire weekend, hire movers from a moving company. Transport companies offer the services of qualified and trained movers who will move your belongings quickly and without unnecessary fuss. Review the company's insurance policy. Different companies have different insurance coverage. You may want to take advantage of insurance services, especially if you have a lot of valuable and breakable items that could be damaged during transportation.
Reserve the elevator. Regardless of the floor you live on, moving things, especially furniture, won't be easy. Luckily, some homes have large service elevators that can be used for just this. However, sometimes these elevators are occupied by others. Therefore, you should reserve the elevator in advance. If you don't do this, you may have to wait a very long time for the elevator to become free. Also, sometimes service elevators only operate at certain times of the day. This also needs to be clarified in advance. Gather all the information you can in advance and plan your move accordingly.
Forward your email. It is possible that you forgot to tell someone that you changed your address. There are services for forwarding mail from an old address to a new one. This will give you the opportunity to make sure that you do not lose any contacts and that any important message does not reach you.