My wife and I have spent the better part of a week packing, throwing stuff away, and giving things to the Salvation Army. It took me a full day just to pack our books (between the two of us, we easily have 1,000 books of varying shapes and sizes). It just now seems like we’re making a dent in preparing for our things to get to their new home. The good thing, I suppose, is that this time we hired movers. I’m totally done with carrying things up and down flights. But we’re still packing most of the stuff, even though the movers will do it for a small fee, just so we know that our important things are packed with care.
But damn. I’m exhausted. I find myself taking more and more breaks (like this one). I’m bored with it. We’re not moving until next Saturday, but I suppose we’re (she’s) afraid of not being done on time. Here is a small list of things that make packing and moving suck:
Hmmm… so what boxes do I put the breadmaker, rice cooker, microwave, and coffeemakers in? I can use a huge box, but because everything’s awkward (and fragile), I end up fitting two appliances in the box with lots of air space. Or I can give each of them a small box, with lots of air. Or we can use a huge box, put in 2 appliances and load it up with towels. That works, but now I’ve used all my towels. I’ll use some old shirts. Now I have shirts in a kitchen box.
So what are we going to do with those curtains?
There is some work that needs to be done in the house (hardwood flooring and carpet installation), so we’re not going to settled be for a month. A couple rooms will remain unpacked until then, including my home office. Great. It’s like living out of a suitcase.
I told my wife: This is it, we’re never moving again.
I’ve started cataloguing and packing books for the move we’ll be making to Milwaukee some time in the future. In the process I’ve found some old friends. The problem with that is that then I can’t pack them until I’ve read them (again). I’m also sorting other things and putting stuff into bags to take to the resale shop. I have no idea when we’ll actually move, but at least this way I won’t have to do it all at once. And the hope is that we won’t end up packing a bunch of stuff we don’t want, just to get it done in a hurry. So far it’s not so bad, but there’s no timetable and I haven’t gotten to the hard stuff. I sympathize with you. I hate moving. It’s too bad we can’t just put the house on wheels and take it there whole.
When I bought a house in 1986 I swore I would never move again. Changes in my circumstances resulted in me moving across several states almost two years ago, and now I am preparing to move a few miles again. Fortunately, I knew that this second move was inevitable, so the bulk of my library was left unpacked. However, that still leaves me with a lot of stuff to pack.
My lease here is not up until the end of July, and I will be closing on the new place in less than two weeks. There are a few things I want to have done to the new place, so I’m going to have them done before I move the furniture and boxes, thus eliminating the “living out of a suitcase” syndrome. I had the foresight to keep all the reusable boxes that I could from the last move, although additions I’ve made to my library and music/DVD collection means I may still have to get more boxes.
I plan on using clothes as padding for the kitchen items and other potential breakables. Moving them to the bedroom after I unpack them in the kitchen is a trivial matter to me.
In the first year of their marriage, my sister and BIL moved three times – consolidating two places to one, then selling their house and moving in with my parents, then moving into their just-built new house. When they finally moved into their current house, my BIL told my sister that he’s never moving again, and if she ever wants to move, he’s going to divorce her and keep the house.
I still have two packed boxes from my last move. I’m tempted just to toss them; I haven’t needed whatever’s in them in the last two years, so why not?
My one piece of sage moving advice, which veterans of many moves no doubt already know, is this: Pack a box that you keep with you in the car. That box should contain sheets and pillows for the bed and whatever essentials you’ll want to have without digging for them (corkscrew, perhaps?). The minute your bed is set up and in place, make the bed. There may be a dozen other things crying for your attention, and making the bed may feel like the equivalent of stopping to hang pictures when the truck still needs to be unloaded, but make the bed anyway.
Then, when you get to the point that you are exhausted beyond belief, your bed will be all fresh and made up, waiting for you.
I think moving is an exercise in existentialism—do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you? What’s really valuable enough to keep with you and what needs to be left at the curb?
When I bought my house, I’d lived in an apt (800 sq feet, maybe) for a couple years. Even at that I had shit that I hadn’t used for years, that was broken (but I planned to fix), etc. I’d be walking to the car to load it but somehow it flew out of my hands and into the dumpster. I haven’t missed any of it.
My current place is about 1600 sq feet but I know I’ve accumulated. God/Og forbid I ever have to move again. It can age you ten years.
I’ve moved ten times in the last five years. I feel your pain. I’ve thrown so much out. I never want to move again, and I’m moving again in two weeks. Thank God all I have is enough to fit in the back of a regular truck/van.
During the first 7 years of our marriage, we had 5 different addresses (not counting the brief stay with the inlaws) including 14 months living aboard our sailboat. We are now in our 25th year, and there have been 5 more addresses added to that list, and I have said, yet again, this is it. The only way I’m moving from this house is when they wheel me to Shady Pines. Or if we hit a mega-lottery, buy a huge waterfront estate, and hire a buncha young, healthy, strong individuals to do the dirty work.
Although we’re still dealing with moving. Our daughter and son-in-law just moved in with us to save up for their own house. At least this time, we don’t have to make the decisions. We just “help” and that’s infinitely better.
The exhaustion I’ve felt from moving is unmatched by any other human endeavor I’ve experienced, and that includes childbirth.
We’ve been in our new place almost a year, we *still *haven’t found everything, and it is now dawning on us that some things might be gone forever.
Ah well. It’s just stuff, and moving does help reduce clutter, that’s for sure.
But yeah. Moving takes a lot out of you–literally.
Add towels/toiletries for a shower, and toilet paper / femine supplies if needed. A small medical kit of required meds or stuff for instant ouchies gotten in the move [bruises, scrapes, aspirine/meds for headaches] and a couple of changes of clothes.
Nothing as nasty as getting into a nice celan bed all sweaty and scroungy from moving… or needing to go and no toilet paper!
We’re moving cross-country this summer, from Maryland to California. Our stuff gets picked up in the third week of June, and will be in storage until early August when we move into our (as yet unknown) place in the San Diego area.
I’ve just started packing up books and stuff, and it’s going to be a long and exhausting process getting everything packed. Moving does, indeed, suck.
My complex wants to seriously “upgrade” all the units and then charge another $250-400 per unit in monthly rent. Fortunately, the management is slowing the process and ‘negotiating’ with the owners in regards to long-time residents (like me) who they want to keep and not drive off by pricing themselves out of the market. My current lease has expired and they won’t renew long-term until they know the new rent amount and when they’ll be making the upgrades.
But I might end up moving later this summer if they decide to increase my rent by the $260 I was quoted last fall. I can get a two bedroom unit elsewhere for less than they’d want to charge me for my one bedroom.
Given how poorly constructed these buildings are and how poorly insulated, I think they’re making a serious mistake by trying to turn them into “luxury” buildings (read: overpriced for the local market).
