How to Pack and Move Your Home in Two Weeks

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Moving 101

There is not a person out there that looks forward to moving, well at least the packing and hauling of all your belongings. Every part of the moving process can be taxing and very overwhelming.

For the most part, the process of moving must happen while juggling multiple other responsibilities and the daily grind of our lives. This may include kids, pets, and full-time jobs. There is just no getting around it.

The most important part about moving and packing is to have a plan of attack and strategy. There are many things that will need to get done, but if you approach the process with a systematic way, you are going to be less likely to forget something.

Step 1: Getting Prepped – Days One and Two

Buy Moving Boxes and Packing Supplies

Once you know that you are going to be moving, you will need to plan out the transition from one house/apartment to the other. Packing is the largest part and the most time consuming. You will need to get your supplies.

Start off by stocking up on these items:

Make Travel Arrangements

You may need to arrange a place to stay if your new home is not ready to be moved into right away. It can be at a family member’s house, a hotel, or even with a friend. You will want to want to have this all planned out before moving day.

Mover’s Insurance

Many homeowner’s insurance policies DO NOT cover property while it is in transit. No matter if your move is across country or just around the corner, your belongings will not have any protection. You will want to consider moving insurance if you would like to be compensated for repairs or replacement.

Utilities

Transfer your utilities from your old home to your new home online or give the utility company a call. You will want to do this early in the process, so that it will avoid any complications with your water or electricity. Make sure to confirm that the process will happen a couple days before you move.

Get Help

Contact your family and friends and let them know about your moving day. You can offer them pizza and beer to sweeten the pot for their help. Also look into hiring professionals. Most likely, you will not be able to handle the move all by yourself. Even if you live in a small apartment, you may only need a couple of hands to help. It is worth hiring professionals if you have a lot of heavy furniture or have a lot of stuff in your home. Damage to furniture is more likely to happen with inexperienced friends and family members.

Step 2: Get Organized – Days Three and Four

Create your plan of attack on packing. Use these steps to help with the packing process:

  1. Walk through your home and take notes for each room. Think on how furniture and items will translate into your new home. This will decide on how to pack the room and keep relevant items together.
  2. Start packing items that are rarely used but you will not need them within the first couple of weeks. Declutter your home of anything that you do not need or use regularly. The more that you discard or donate, the less you will have to pack.
  3. Identify your essential items from each room. Place these items to the side. These types of items could include:
    1. Pots and pans
  4. Cooking utensils
  5. Toiletries
  6. Clothing
  7. Pack up the least used room. Then while packing other rooms, place moving boxes and completed belongings in this room for storage.
  8. Reserve a storage unit if needed. Use this space to store any belongings that you do not have a permanent plan for at the beginning.

Step 3: Start Packing – Days five through ten

Let the packing Begin! Once you have done a thorough walkthrough of your home and identified your essentials, you can now start to pack your belongings. You will want to do this carefully, due to you will need to find everything. Plan to do 1 to 2 days of full packing. It is best to plan these days for over a weekend. This will help you power through all the major rooms in your home.

  1. Anything that is non-essential start to pack. Make a note and label each box with which room that box or container belongs in. You can also label your boxes with numbers along side the room. For example, you have 4 boxes for bedroom 1, label your boxes with “Bedroom 1, box 1 of 4” and so on. This will help you while unpacking to know if any boxes are missing.
  2. This is the time to donate or discard belongings that you will not be taking with you to your new home. Decluttering is good, and you will feel better not to have as much stuff and will help the feeling of being less overwhelmed.
  3. PACK CAREFULLY. Make sure to use the right type of supplies for certain items such as bubble wrap or packing paper. You will want to use moving pads or blankets to cover your wood furniture to protect from any damage. When packing dishes and other breakables, make sure to label the kitchen box as “Fragile”.
  4. If you have items that are going to be disassembled, kept all the parts together. This is where your supply of Ziploc bags come into play. Also, make sure to label the bag of parts, so if for some reason it does get separated, you know what those items in bag belong to.
  5. If you are using a storage unit for some items, identify what items need to go to the unit. Label these items as “Storage” and set them aside.

Step 4: Finalize – Days Eleven through Fourteen

Now that you are all packed and ready to move, its time to finalized everything.

  1. Deep clean your home or apartment. Do everything you were not able to do with your home filled with your belongings. Clean out the refrigerator, mop the floors, steam clean your carpets. Now is the time to get all this completed.
  2. You do not need to move everything over to your new home in one trip, well unless you are moving across country. Take a few car loads over to your new place each day. You can also do this while you are packing if your new place is available to move into. This will help cut down on the number of items you will need to move on moving day.
  3. Pack and move the non-essential essentials. This is when you are going to start packing your cooking utensils, clothing, and toiletries that you will not need to use anymore.
  4. Pack an overnight bag. Pack a bag like you are going on an overnight business trip. This will include clothing and toiletries.
  5. If you have hired a professional moving company, get bottled water and pull-out cash for the tip. If friends and family are helping, get snacks and pre-order any pizza or food.
  6. Confirm utilities are being transferred to your new home.

Packing in two weeks is not an ideal situation for most people, but it can be done. Spreading out the steps into a month is more manageable and less stressful. But if you are in a time crunch, these are the best steps to make your move manageable.