finally i am back in my groove. i am so grateful for this. it is so awful to feel so inhuman when you're incapacitated with morning sickness {ie: all day sickness} and crippling fatigue. i feel incredibly blessed to have felt better within a few weeks of making this big move and even more blessed to continue to feel well and to have gotten everything unpacked so quickly. by day 3 we were very much settled in!
this is our 14th move in 11 years, i kind of consider myself a little bit of an "expert" on moving by now. in case anyone else may find it helpful i thought i'd include a few tips of how i organize, pack and get unpacked quickly. there's nothing like making a fast transfer so your days of limbo can be limited. it's so much more settling for everyone when everything is back in its' place and your new home actually FEELS like home.
whenever we know we're moving i always start to begin packing non-essentials as soon as i can. usually i have 2 weeks notice-1 month. this last time we had 3 months, which i'm sure helped a lot since we were still dealing with sicky momma, lots of house and landscape projects, finding renters etc. luckily, between a hugely helpful husband (when i saw him for about 24-48 hours every weekend) and a wonderful mom who flew across country to stay with me and the kiddos for a WHOLE MONTH to help out! my father-in-law, dan was a HUGE help in assisting us with our main bathroom remodel. after chris got the bathroom tile surrounding the tub and floor demolished he came and helped us figure everything out and helped tile it and grouted the floor for us. my mom was a champ and grouted the shower for me. my mother-in-law julie also helped out a ton too as we got yard work and house cleaning done.
so, i begin packing away anything unnecessary in every room, clear a space in the garage (or pick an available space if you have one that can be dedicated to mounting boxes). like things go in like boxes, no just throwing whatever in with whatever. that seems like common sense, but you'd be surprised by how many people just start throwing things in boxes! no wonder it takes forever to find everything!
step1- i always start with closets right away. get everything out of there that isn't going to be worn in the immediate future. i pack my clothes in a box and chris' clothes in his own box. when i can, i stick belts, jewelry and shoes in as well. I try to limit us each to one big box when we move (this is clothing that has been hung or is laid on shelving like our sweaters). other clothing stays in the drawers, for everyone. on moving day, we take the drawers out, move the dresser into the moving truck and then put the drawers back in. same when we unload truck. clothes are already where they need to be on move-in day! i have 1 large black heavy-duty trash bag that i stick all of the hangers in. I label each black trashbag with a strip of masking tape and black sharpie marker. i usually have all the clothes hung up by day 1 or 2 of move-in.
step2- after closets i usually move on to books and children's toys. pick out everything the kids don't play with on an every day basis. usually that means that they have a small pile of books, Legos, and a couple of other toys left out for the duration until we move. this is a great time to consider which books and toys you can haul off to DI or sell in a yardsale if you are having one.
i keep my kids' toys in plastic storage bins, ranging in size from small-xlarge depending on the toy. everything is labeled and has a picture so older and younger kids know where to put their toys away. i have been lucky enough to use the same moving boxes since we first moved from Twin Falls to Idaho Falls (they have lasted us 4 moves now...) they are sturdy boxes a friend got us for free from a box factory there and i have tried to re-pack the same items in the same sized boxes according to their labels. the same size boxes that i have used for mine and chris' clothes i also use for toys, books and games. i take the toys out of the plastic containers and double-bag them in a grocery bag. then i can stack the containers inside each other in the box and stuff the toys in and around them. doing it this way i am able to utilize one box to pack anywhere from 4-6 boxes of toys.
step3- decorations. again, i start in the master bedroom and kids' rooms because that's where i've already been focusing my attention. i just take down their pictures and decorations in their room and put items from one room in one box. if there is extra space i'll look for little things that belong in those rooms, like misc. toys that didn't already get boxed up or roll up a few items of their clothing just to secure the items in the box from moving around. typically i only use bubblewrap on kitchen items and glass decor. most of the time i can pack the kids' pictures back to back so the glass can't break and their decor tight enough that nothing can move around and break. if it's fragile, mark it so! each kiddo gets to pick ONE stuffed animal to keep out through moving day, the others go into another large black trash bag labeled stuffed animals.
so bedrooms become pretty bare. just clothes that need to be worn hanging in closet, bedding and dressers with clothes inside. i usually leave one lamp in the master bedroom and pack up everything in our nightstands that is not needed.
on moving day the rest of the clothes in the closet get moved in an overnight bag. i usually wash everyone's bedding the day of the unpacking part of the move. if i can't get to it right away then we have sleeping bags that are easily accesible. it is soooo nice having all the beds set up with freshly laundered linens. each bed and it's entirety of bedding gets thrown in it's own black trash bag and labeled. put their pillows in too.
couch pillows all go in one bag. extra blankets in bags...you get the picture. it's helpful to have these black trashbags full of squishy items to pack in and around things, as well as to stack on top of items that can't take a lot of weight or that are awkward, like couches or pianos.
step4- move on to other home decor and pictures. i have a large, tall box (about 3') that I put large picture frames and wall hangings in. usually this goes in the back of the car with me on moving day. any other decor items that are awkward to pack (like wreaths, globes, shutters, mirrors) i usually put in a pile in an area of things that will go with me instead of taking up a lot of space to pack.
when packing decor use extra towels and rags to wrap things in. like i said before, if you pack things tightly they can't move around and are less likely to break. you can use styrofoam plates in between kitchen plates. i usually wrap glasses in bubblewrap.
by packing in stages like this its' less overwhelming. if you have the time you can focus on one room a day. we had a large house in idaho falls with about 3600 sq. feet and i had a LOT of stuff because i'd been "collecting" items to refinish and sell. i had a LOT of things to go through and subsequently had to take much more time taking pictures of items and selling them online and doing a huge yardsale. i also went through ALL of my craft and sewing items and seriously got rid of probably 80% of it. i knew that most things i just didn't care about anymore. any projects i really still wanted to do i packed in the drawers of my entertainment dresser. i allowed myself several fruit boxes of unfinished items to be done within the year, a box of kids' craft items, ONE plastic bin of fabric (yeah this was HARD! this was also other than the fabric i had stored in the drawers for specific projects). anyhow, i seriously decluttered and downsized the amount of items we had and IT FELT SO GOOD!
step5- just keep at it! every day try too accomplish a task; whether it be kitchen cabinets, cleaning a room or packing specific boxes. as i pack i also clean. it makes moving day so much easier! wipe baseboards, blinds and ceiling fans down. wash any spots on walls and spackle/paint touch-up where needed.
i'm really not an expert of course, but these are things that have really helped me.
on moving day make sure to take charge and let people know where things go. have every box go where it's supposed to go!
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so here we are, in Tooele, Utah! a place i never thought we'd live! i had imagined moving somewhere in the salt lake valley whenever i thought of moving down here, which was pretty much inevitable for Chris' career path. anyhow, when reality hit i knew the valley just wasn't the place for me. not the environment where i personally wanted to raise my family, even if for a short time. too crowded, too busy, too much concrete!
we were so lucky to have friends, chad and candice hymas that we had been neighbors with in Twin Falls who had now moved to Tooele. they had been renting a townhouse for a year and a half and just bought another house there. we had been in contact through facebook and i asked her about the townhouse. at the time we were looking at a large home comparable to ours in west jordan. it turned out to be a scam, which i had a bad feeling about from the beginning.
i wanted specific things in our new place in utah. first and foremost i did not want to spend more money than our current budget in idaho falls for a rental, even though we would be renting our place in IF for several hundred more dollars. this was a tall order. housing in utah is typically 48% higher than in idaho! to keep within this budget i even looked at 2 and 3-bedroom apartments that offered ammenities like storage to make it workable. i did not want to be over $1000 since utilities would also run more expensive in utah. the goal of this process was to continue to become debt-free over the coming 1-2 years, so living below our means was very important to us.
moving out of the valley was not only attractive to me for my personal purposes of not feeling like i could be at home there, but also because rentals were much more affordable. it just so happened that chad and candice's place was actually exactly what we'd been looking for- a garage for storage, a separate family room for more living space and place for toys, crafts and guests. a deck AND a patio so we could continue to enjoy outdoor living with our grill and patio table in the summertime, our own fenced in backyard and more than 1 bathroom. those were my requirements and i feel like God actually handed this place to us!
it's a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom, 3-level townhouse with a walk-out daylight basement with sliding glass doors in the family room to a patio into the backyard and a deck off the kitchen with sliding glass doors. the kitchen is small and not evenly remotely as nice and wonderful as my newly remodeled kitchen in idaho falls (ahhhh.....) BUT it is open and bright and sunny. it works, my whole 2 feet of counter space =) and i am actually really enjoying cooking on a gas stove.
the backyard has a beautiful view of the stansbury mountains in the great salt lake and we have gorgeous views of the mountains from the front of the house, specifically the master bedroom, which is small, but also works just fine.
another post with pictures of the place coming soon....one more small project to finish the living room before i can take pics!
