My Best Packing Tips And Tricks

My Best Packing Tips And TricksIn case you missed the news, my husband and I recently moved from our old mid-century home to a new 1960s ranch. We’re just about two weeks post-move, so I finally feel decompressed enough to reminisce about the process. Moving is never very fun. It’s an exhausting experience for everyone involved, and is emotional, too, but there are plenty of things you can do to make it go a little easier. Here’s a list of the 12 packing tips and tricks that worked for us.

12 Easy Packing Tips For Your Next Move:

1. When taping up your moving boxes, fold over the end of the tape and stick it to itself so you have something to grab when you get to your new home and are ready to tear into the box. In other words, you don’t need a knife to get into the box—you can just pull the tape right off by the DIY tab you made.

2. Scoop all of your hanging clothes into your arms while they’re still on the hangers, and then stuff them into the open end of a lawn-size trash bag. Pull the bag up and around the clothes and tie it up around the loops on the hangers. Now you can lift the entire group of clothes off the hanging rail and move them to the new hanging rail without having the take the items off their hangers. Bonus: You can reuse the trash bags after the move!

3. Purchase one brightly colored plastic tote and store all of your essentials in it—the items you know you’ll need right away in your new home or as you unpack. I bought a bright orange box so I could spot it easily amongst the piles of mismatched moving boxes and totes, and I filled it with things like hand soap and soap dispensers, paper towels, a box cutter, scissors, all of our important medicines (for both us and the pets), granola bars, all-purpose cleaning supplies, toilet paper, etc.

4. Put styrofoam or paper plates between your nice everyday plates to protect them during the move. Wrap the stack with bubble wrap, and then you should be good to go. This saves space since bubble wrap ends up wasting square footage in a moving box if you use it on every single item, and you can use the travel plates after the move. For bowls, use a paper towel between each to protect them during the move.

5. Before dismantling all of the styled shelves and décor in your old home, take a few photos of the setup with your phone. This will allow you to recreate the looks you loved from your previous space in your new one.

6. When taking down mirrors, shelves, and other mounted items that require specific screws and hardware, bag up each individual item’s hanging accessories and tape it to the mirror, shelf, or whatever so you don’t lose the pieces or get them mixed up with other hardware.

7. Stick blank Post-It notes onto empty drawers and cabinets as you pack so you know what’s done. That way you’re not constantly looking inside closets and drawers to make sure they’re empty.

8. Speaking of Post-Its, I also used these to organize the contents of our old kitchen in our new one. You can see this tip in action on my Instagram here, but the gist is that I wrote the contents of each drawer/cabinet from our old kitchen onto individual Post-It notes. Then, when we got to our new house I stuck those individual notes on each cabinet door and drawer to label them. Since I used Post-Its to lay everything out ahead of transferring stuff, I was able to move the notes to better spots before having to move the actual items. The bonus was that after we did move in our stuff, we knew where each item was because of the notes.

9. Pack books in suitcases with wheels since they get so heavy.

10. Cut v-shaped handles into the sides of boxes so they’re easier to pick up.

11. Use wine/liquor boxes with cardboard cubby inserts to stow away thin bottle-shaped or fragile knickknacks.

12. Clickable Sharpie markers allow you to avoid dealing with caps when labeling boxes.

If you decide you only want to take one tip from that list for your move, I recommend the last one. It was the biggest time-saver for me as I juggled labeling piles of boxes by myself, and now I get to use the nice clickable Sharpies everyday in our new house, too. They really are pretty amazing.

Do you have any moving or packing tips of your own to share? Please leave a comment! I found watching moving vlogs on YouTube to be really helpful as I gathered ideas before our move, but the comments sections of those videos were actually the most helpful. Everyone has so many creative ideas to share, and I hope you’ll offer some of your own genius insight in the comments section of this post so others can put it to good use.

12 Easy Packing Tips For Your Next Move

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Touring Our New Mid-Century Ranch

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

Last week I shared a quick sneak peek of our new brick ranch home, and today I’m back with the full home tour. I’m going to show you each room, and even talk through a handful of our broad design plans. Stay tuned over the next several weeks if you want even more design talk because I will break things down room by room and offer a peek at my mood board for each space, too. For now, though, let’s dive into the full tour.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

The entryway and living room are some of our favorite spaces in the house. The original slate floor is in great condition, and will stand up well to muddy boots and doggie paws this winter. How about that cool original smoked glass light fixture, too?! We definitely don’t plan to change that.

One thing we originally had been planning to change was the pistachio green wall color in the living room (the room with the fireplace that you see pictured above). I think we’ll update it to a more neutral color in the entryway since it doesn’t complement the wallpaper there, which we plan to keep, but it somehow looks great with our furniture in the living room. As soon as we set our green couch and other furniture down in the pistachio-colored room, it somehow worked. You can see the room furnished on my Instagram here.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

The kitchen and eat-in area, on the other hand, will definitely be seeing some major changes over the next year or so. In fact, we’ve already made lots of progress since these photos were taken. My sister and her boyfriend came to visit our first weekend in the new house (November 4), and they proceeded to tag-team wallpaper removal all over the house, much to our relief and joy. All of the frilly wallpaper you see in the eat-in area pictured above is gone, as well as in the hall bathroom, and my art studio. There’s still the under layers of paper to remove and the glue, but they made huge progress in those two days, which we’re so grateful for.

Anyway, the eat-in area will be painted white, at least to start, and we also plan to paint the kitchen cabinets some shade of white or off-white. The current dark wood stain isn’t very even, and there’s a slightly offensive (to my eyes, at least) high gloss varnish over top. The stain and varnish have worn away in many areas, and it’s time to start over.

I’m not usually one to paint wood, but I’m willing to accept when a certain wood finish has exhausted its lifetime, and this one is shot. I’m really excited to see how white paint will make the cool door trim pop! It’s worth noting that we also plan to replace the countertops, the cabinet hardware, and we also have installed a new white refrigerator since these photos were taken. The lighting will also be updated. I can’t wait to dive into those projects.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

The sunroom and dining room are the two yellow-painted rooms you see above. We’re actually painting the sunroom white today, and plan to do the same in the dining room. I don’t usually decorate with the color yellow, and, while I actually am open to using that color in this house, I wouldn’t have chosen the particular shade of yellow that you see above. We will also be changing out the light fixture in the dining room and the fans in our new sunroom.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

The hall bathroom is a fantastic size, but most of the details will eventually need to be replaced. I actually don’t mind the retro vanity or even the faux marble formica countertop, but the original sinks have big rust holes in them, and I think it’s time to modernize the space a bit so that it lasts for the next 60 years. Oh, and, as I said, the wallpaper has already been removed. We’ll probably leave the vanity and floors alone for a few years, but we will replace the counters and sink, mirror, light fixtures, and the walls will be painted as soon as possible—probably over Thanksgiving when my sister comes back to visit.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

The photos you see above show our new main bedroom suite. We haven’t had an attached main bathroom in our bedroom since we lived in our townhouse seven years ago, so it has been really nice to enjoy that perk again since moving into our new home. I was initially planning on removing the wallpaper in the bedroom over the chair rail, but when we put our furniture in the room, it somehow worked! We might get sick of it, but for now, it’s staying. The matching paper in the small main bathroom has got to go, though (it’s just a little too much for that small space), and the old light fixtures, too. Lots to do in that room, but we’re planning on taking our time with it.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

I managed to claim the two extra bedrooms for my own use—one as my home office and the other as my art studio. Don’t worry. John has a giant semi-finished space in the basement that he’s excited to make over to his heart’s content! He also has the new garage to enjoy all to himself (pictured below). At any rate, I’m giddy about the possibilities for my new office and studio. Some of the original details will be staying (the wallpaper in the office, louvered closet doors in both rooms, sweet custom drapes), but some have got to go (the window shutters, striped wallpaper in my studio, the fans in both rooms). Again, we’re going to take it slow so we don’t get overwhelmed, but I hope to be able to share some progress in these spaces soon.

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home RenovationBefore: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

And how about that enormous unfinished basement?! Good thing we have that space because the closets are a little smaller in this house compared to our old ranch. So, now that you’ve seen the entire tour, I’m curious…Which details and accents would you keep? Which would you get rid of? Are you excited about our renovation now that you know some of our design plans? As I said, I’ll be sharing all of our makeover plans for each individual room over the next several weeks, so keep an eye on the blog for those details if you’re curious. In the meantime, leave a comment with your own thoughts and ideas for our renovation!

Before: Mid-Century Ranch Home Renovation

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