Tips for Packing the Boxes for Your Interstate Move
Moving long distances can be daunting and expensive. While many interstate removal services provide packing options, you can save money by packing the smaller stuff that can fit into boxes yourself. You can leave the heavy and oversized items to the experts to manage. However, if you want to succeed, you'll need to be organised. Here are some tips.
Boxes
Before you work out how to pack the boxes, consider the boxes you'll use. Their size and strength are crucial. You might have plenty of old cardboard boxes lying around your home. But are they the right size and strength for what you want to store in them? Additionally, are they all random sizes, making them harder to stack compactly in a truck than more consistently sized boxes?
If you purchase boxes specifically for your move, you can match the boxes to the stored items. Thus, you can choose small, solid boxes for heavy books, so the box bottom is less likely to give way. Large tea-chest-size boxes can carry large, light items such as cushions and lamps. Packing heavier things in small boxes means that you and the removalists can more easily lift the boxes.
Keeping Track
You should also work out a tracking and tracing system. You could colour-code the boxes according to their destination in your new home so that the boxes intended for the kitchen are designated yellow, for example.
This strategy helps as it means the removalists can place the boxes in the proper rooms. Alternatively, they may stack them in one location or scatter them randomly around the house, creating extra work for you later. You'll have to lug heavy boxes around from room to room.
Additionally, you can stick a number on each box on several sides. Then you'll have an overall count and know if any are missing. A simple inventory can list each box number, its room and colour and its general contents. If a box goes astray, you'll see what items are missing. If the boxes are plainly colour-coded and numbered, you should be able to find them if they've been mislaid.
Packing the Boxes
To pack your stuff, you'll also need packing paper, bubble wrap and possibly moving blankets, which you may be able to hire. Try to eliminate as much free space as possible in each box. The more dead air there is, the more things can jiggle, shift and possibly break. Thus, use screwed up packing paper to stuff any gaps. You can wrap plates with paper before stacking them, and fill glasses and mugs with paper as well.
You can arrange bubble wrap on top for extra cushioning. You might line the box with bubble wrap for especially fragile items and use the wrap to separate items. You can also stuff elements such as foam or cardboard into free space. Sometimes you'll need the soft padding that removal blankets offer. You may have packed a table lamp in a large box, which will leave plenty of dead space because of its shape. In that case, a small blanket pushed into the voids can help.
For more information, contact interstate removal services near you.
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