The Art of the Move

There seems to be a special recipe that must be in place to orchestrate the perfect move. I’m not talking about dance moves, because we know I need no assistance in that department; I mean the art of moving all your belongings from one living space to another.

Here are the key components that I have identified: planning, adequate supplies, friends, quality furniture, and no unexpected developments.

Yes, once all these things come together, a move can be smooth and seamless. On the other hand, if you are a member of my family, not one of the critical components will be in place and the result will be a disaster worthy of federal aid.

Let’s start at the top: Planning. In my defense, I thought I was packing at a good pace. Each day, I would get home from work, feed the family (they would laugh at this statement), get the kids in bed and then put in some solid packing time. I had boxes lined up on the walls so things looked productive. It wasn’t until two days before the move that I realized we were in bad shape. All the drawers still had items in them and there were stacks of odds and ends in corners. Worst of all, we were out of boxes.  It was like being at Sam’s Club and buying a million tiny things and having to pack it in your car, item by item. So when the day of the move came upon us, we were able to carry the big things out into the truck, but had literal mountains of clutter in every room. This is not a Martha Stewart approved move approach.

Adequate Supplies: As I stated before, we ran out of boxes quickly. So when I had a closet full of clothes to transport, there was nothing to pack them in but a giant box that once housed pieces of chairs (about 5-1/2 feet long). We had two such boxes, so Mark’s clothes went in the other one. The size and weight require a “Team Lift” and they now sit in my new closet, unpacked and completely in the way.

Friends: You never realize just how much anti-social behavior can negatively affect your life until you need to move and you have to search your mind for someone to help. Unfortunately, of the small number of people that actually do like us, many had prior plans. Mark and I were actually laughing at the fact that we have moved a number of times in the last 8 years and it has either been just he and I or my sister, my mom, and me (save one time, where we were moving back to town and people didn’t know they didn’t like us yet) So, once again, Mark, my sister, and I grunted and shoved couches through door frames and were crushed under the weight of a floppy, king size memory foam mattress that is impossible to carry. My sister and I tempted fate by attempting to use a dolly (is this how you spell this?) to carry 200+ pounds of solid oak shelf, only to learn later that we were actually using it on backwards (oops). Then a ray of sunshine: one of Mark’s coworkers stopped by for some heavy lifting/unloading. It was fabulous. We felt bad that he had to carry a face-full of cat hair covered couch when he was in fact, allergic to cats.

The morning after the move, I was not surprised to find that my legs were covered in bruises. They are indeed so plentiful, my bare legs look like I’m wearing rare white leopard print leggings. Maybe I should just add an extra-long t-shirt and belt to complete the look.

Quality furniture: If you buy nice furniture, then you don’t have to worry about tearing fabric sounds while you are jamming your couch through a door frame or your bookshelf literally falling to pieces once you set it down in the moving truck. Although, if you can afford nice furniture, maybe you can afford movers, and you wouldn’t have this problem in the first place…

Unexpected Developments: Things like children’s soccer games in the middle of moving day, and finding out you have to pick up more furniture miles and miles away (when you are paying per mile on the truck), or realizing you have a forgotten supply of storage at someone else’s house can upset a moving day. Again, all these things could have been avoided if I would have focused on the planning stage a little more. Also unexpected is having no window coverings in the new house, even in the bathrooms and bedrooms. So you can pretty much be guaranteed to be on display to the whole neighborhood, no matter what you are doing in our house. Why not purchase new ones? A combined shortage of time, measurements, and money. I wonder if my neighbors like my leopard print leggings.