The Right Tools Make Moving your Home Easier

Moving Home is a lot of hands-on work. Packing and cleaning up, taking down and setting up. But it doesn’t always have to be so hard on you; there are lots of tools that are freely available to help you make the job of moving so much simpler.

Do-it-Yourself seems to be a new way of moving house, and we can actually learn a lot of things from the way professional moving companies handle their business. Their moving guys bring a plethora of tools with them to make their job easier, so why shouldn’t we acquire some of these tools for ourselves to bring our budget down. We’re sure we can do just as good a job right?

If you’ve got a lot of things, don’t fret about the amount of things that need moving. With Stair Climbers and moving dollies, shifting the big and bulky things will be a breeze. Look around for difference sizes of dollies that will suit your needs and make sure that you check the weight limits.  These will definitely help especially when you need to bring things down from the kids’ rooms into the front porch to be ready for transportation and even just to move furniture into a more accessible place.

Lots of things lying around the house could be useful too. You can peek in the shed for ropes and straps and bungee cords that can help secure your items. Not just while moving around the house on the dollies, but especially while in transit when there’s a chance of bumps and knocks on the road. If you’ve got your packing boxes securely in place, there’s less chance of the precious contents being damaged or heaven forbid, flying off the back of the truck! You can never be too secure about buckling down your things when on the move!

Besides buying some extra tools, you can save time by making your own. Create home-made padding from towels and cushions and blankets by wrapping them around fragile and delicate items. 

Almost anything which is cloth-based can make easy substitutes for padding - even mattress protectors can be used as extra cushioning. You’ll save money from having to buy bubble-wrap and renting padding from the moving companies.

Rags can also double up and be used to protect corners and sides from getting dinged when you’re trying to manoeuvre the bulkier equipment through door frames and tighter spaces. They can also be used as cushions for pressure points if you have to rest something dirty on delicate flooring like parquet and marble.

Stationery like packing tape, scissors and markers you definitely can’t do without. You’d be surprised what other household items can also be dual-purposed to help you on your packing and organizing project! Ziplock bags and toilet roll cylinders make fantastic separators and partitions for your smaller items like jewellery and knick knacks. And besides securing your packing boxes, masking tape can be used as cheap label replacements and it’s always a good idea to indicate what’s inside each box so unpacking can be made simpler.

Tools are not just about screwdrivers and wrenches, but pretty much anything that can help you make the job easier. 

Packing can really be made simpler if you hire plastic moving boxes, they come with dollies and you don’t have to worry what to do with those cardboard boxes, as you won’t need them at all.

Can Home Moving be Cheap?

Besides your time and effort for packing, moving home can be potentially quite expensive if you’ve not done your budgeting or looked at your options.

With all these considerations in mind, do consider saving money by doing things yourself. It affords you better control of where your money goes and if you have the time, you’re going to be able to take things slowly and carefully; the DIY way is just as good a way of moving your items.

There are a number of different areas which you can look at the ensure that you keep your costs low for moving, and you can use that savings to get some new furniture, or do a little more touching up of your new bathrooms or even just buy yourself a celebratory beer when everything has been done and dusted.

1) Look out for peak period pricing

Sunny and long days in summer are in high demand, because everybody has the same idea to make a house move while the sun shines. Many people will avoid the winter period because of the high humidity although prices may be relatively cheaper. Consider moving on a weekday and in the beginning of the month and away from public holidays to make use of the discounts that moving companies give for not moving on a peak day.

2) Recycle your packing material

Packing boxes have normally supplied by the moving company, but at a price. See if you can get your hands on any from items you’ve purchased or even at your local grocer, stationery store and supermarket. Markers and packing tape may also be cheaper in bulk, so keep an eye out for stationery sales.

Plastic Packing Boxes or containers may be a good idea too and especially if you own a good number of them. You can even save time by packing your plastic contain exactly how you would in your new residence or office and moving them right into place. If not, hiring plastic boxes may be an economical, convenient and environmentally friendly way of going about it too.

3) Plan your trip from here to there

The easiest way to save costs on travel and transportation is to have a good estimate of how many items you need to have moved. The more items you have, the more trips you’ll have to make. And that in turn means more petrol and more expenses.

Depending on the amount of things you have and if you’ve got a drivers’ license, you may want to rent a vehicle for the day - a truck of a station wagon so that you can take things on your own time and load up your things carefully before transportation. You can also opt for a moving company whose services normally include movers who will help you to load up the container. There are also companies which allow you the flexibility of a no frills service that helps you with transportation only.

4) Rope in everybody to help!

If you’ve done your calculations and you’re short just that little bit of space or you need someone to come help you with that bulk fridge, don’t hesitate to call your friends and family in to help. Many hands make light work you know. Just make sure to take that money you saved and share some of the celebratory beer around when the day is done and everything is at your new place.

Is it Time to Move Somewhere New?

Deciding to uproot yourself and move to somewhere new will never be an easy decision to make, whether it’s down the street or cross the country or even to an entirely new part of the world.

Memories are made and pleasures shared in a place which housed your family and that place would have seen you through some pretty incredible milestones of your life.

There are always plenty of reasons that drive a move - expansion, downgrading, new opportunity, even just on a whim to have a new environment. Whatever the reason, emotions tend to run deep; but no matter how difficult it may be to come to leave your beloved home, Boomerang Box wants you to be prepared when you have set your mind on getting from an old place to a new.

And here are some things to think about doing to help make that transition a little easier:

1. Get your family in on it
The quicker you tell your spouse and kids, the more time they’ll have to come to terms with the move too, and when they’re all on board, the ship can sail smoothly and quickly. There’s nothing like a cooperative family to make the time pass a little faster on a mundane job like moving house and also make the tedious work that much easier to bear.

2. Why are you moving?
Again, there could be a lot of reasons why you are moving, but will it affect other things? Will you stay within the reach of local conveniences and schools? Are you in a rush to get there? Will the company/family be able to help? Remember to ask your family members if there is anything that they would like you to consider and do give it a think so your family knows that they also play a major part in your decisions.

3. Budget, Budget, Budget
Look at different companies and compare quotes to find a value for money option. Review what you really need - do you have bulky items that require strong men to help you with moving them around or whether you have fragile items that need special protection or packing boxes? And remember to clarify what is included inside your contracts when you’ve decided what you need too! Sometimes, handling the move on your own may even be feasible if you don’t have a lot of things, or if your new location isn’t too far away.

4. Get a time schedule up and running
Packing and moving should be planned to clear within a month - to get affairs in order as well as organizing the items that you want to bring with you to your new place. Finalise your target date for the move and work backwards so that you have ample time to handle unforeseen circumstances. Anything can happen even with the best made plans, so it helps to have a contingency plan too!

5. Start packing!
The faster you get started on things, the faster things are completed. There’s no feeling like a completed job but do also remember that some things need to be out up to the last minute - you’ll still need some dinnerware and cutlery and possibly a change of bed sheets. Schedule the very last items to be packed to be as fuss-free and as minimal as possible so that it minimizes the number of return trips you have to do after moving day has come and gone, and even better so you may not have to make a return trip at all!

Moving to Your New House

Oh NO! Moving house means I have to start looking at stuff in the attic, I have to clear out the pantry, do I want to keep or chuck my things, and I don’t know where to begin! Everything is in such a mess!

Sound familiar?

Having to move can be a stressful experience if you’ve never done it before. Having done it before can prepare you a little for what’s to come and the things and processes you need to be prepared for. That’s why many people opt to transfer the responsibilities to a moving company that will handle everything from start to finish. But that means costly fees for manpower, to micromanaging what the transport guys touch and don’t touch and more often than not, it’s tough to allow strange people to get up close and personal with your private items.

Thankfully you can tap on your own network of friends and family to help, and if all else fails, the internet is your go-to guru for any questions you have. There lots of websites that are available to supply you with advice, and some will even have a step-by-step list for you to plan your move from start to finish - what you need to do first, how to handle different items, etc.

Once you’ve worked up the motivation to kickoff the process of packing, here’s some tips that might be able to help you keep the flow moving.
Start labelling your packing boxes: You can label them with the items that are supposed to go in - like Clothes, Books, Kitchenware, Documents, Toys, etc.

Start with one box and finish it before moving to the next. If you don’t get distracted when packing then we take our hats off! Sometimes it’s hard to keep focused when hidden in the pile of documents was the love letter you once wrote your wife, or your old teddy bear that you handed down to your kids. But stick to it! You’ll be proud of yourself when you snap on that lid of the packing box.

Look for big items or items at the back of the cupboard that you haven’t used for the last year and check those off the lists first. These are normally the easiest to put aside because they are normally used for very specific things. The mixer, the bar stools, the salad bowls, the ski poles, etc. These items should tell you right away whether you want to keep them or not and it makes clearing up a huge amount of items off your to-do list that much simpler!

Schedule Breaks: You’ve probably taken a few unscheduled ones anyway while looking through the bookshelf or the closet, but scheduling breaks is the easiest way to make sure that you get a good amount of work done. Make sure you keep hydrated during “work time” and take a walk to stretch a bit. You don’t want to strain yourself too much when you’re getting down and dirty organizing!

For us at Boomerang Box, we like to think that half the battle is won by just getting started and getting the first packing box out. Experience tells us that once you get started, every item you put in your moving boxes is another step closer to be ready for the big move. Get started a bit at a time and you’ll be ready before you know it!