| Selling

If you have ever moved before, you know the importance of packing carefully and strategically. The last thing you want is for boxes to fall apart, for your valuables to get damaged or for your belongings to get misplaced. Follow these tips to ensure your items are packed and moved, safely and securely:

1. Use the correct box size. Do not make boxes too heavy. Put heavy items in small boxes and light items in larger ones. Extra heavy boxes make the job harder and heavy items are a common complaint of professional movers – they also have a better chance of breaking. It is better to have two lighter boxes than one extra heavy one!

2. When packing boxes, pack heavier items on the bottom and lighter ones on top. When packing the truck, pack heavier boxes first, towards the front of the truck, for better balance.

3. Fill in empty spaces in boxes. Fill in any gaps with clothing, towels, or packing paper. Loosely packed or unbalanced boxes can be hard to move and stack. Filling boxes helps to ensure things don’t move around too much in transit and during handling. It also makes sense to use up as much space as possible!

4. Keep boxes organized. Avoid mixing items from different rooms in the same box, this will make your packing quicker and everything will be easier to unpack when the time comes. You will not be left wondering what belongs to who and where things should go.

5. Label everything. You may think you will remember which boxes contain what, or what items belong where – but once everything is packed up, it is easy to get confused. In clear writing, label each box with its contents. Mark each box with an alphanumeric code, with the letter indicating the room it is destined for and label each box with a number to keep track. Keep inventory in a small notebook – this way you will know if anything is missing and what is missing.

6. Tape boxes well. Use tape to close bottom and top seams. If a box is on the heavier side, make a couple of wraps all the way around the box’s top and bottom edges where stress tends to concentrate.

7. Protect fragile items. When packing dishes, wrap them individually in packing paper and wrap bundles of five or six together with more paper. Always pack dishes on their sides and use bunched-up paper as padding above and below. For extra padding, pack your glasses and stemware in clean socks.

If you are planning on moving, and looking for some help or advice, feel free to give me a call at 416.960.9995 – I would be happy to help.