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For those of you that have done it, got any tips? I'm referring to the actual process itself, stories of moving companies, any suggestions on do it yourself packing type moves, packing advice etc. Semi trailers vs. air ride trailers etc. Self packing a truck vs. paying the hauler to pack the truck. Self packing our belongings etc.
We are looking at a 2K mile move from Reno, NV to the Austin area. I have talked to full service moving companies as well as the type that put a semi trailer in front of your house, let you load it and then they haul it.
I'm leaning towards a semi do it yourself due to the costs factors. My employer will give us an allowance that would not cover a full service but would cover a do it yourself type move. I'm not talking about a U-Haul, that is too do it yourself. We would hire the company to possibly pack the truck and to haul the trailer and we would pack our own belongings and unload and unpack upon arrival.
We are a family of 4 and currently own a 4 bdrm, 3 car garage home that is 1800 sq. ft.
Any experiences? Good, bad and other would be appreciated.
I will tell you how we moved from CA to Austin. That doesn't mean I think you should do it just like us, but I'm just reporting on the experience. We had not yet sold our home at the time we moved, so we left lamps in the house, and one bed, the dining room table and chairs, for when we returned, and we had not gotten around to cleaning out the garage completely. (This is not ideal - we should have gotten the garage cleaned out, but didn't have the time - we had to get to TX to move my mom to an assisted living facility, but that is a different story.)
We moved with our then 23 year old son. We knew that we would be renting for a while, so we packed carefully. Each box was numbered. In addition to listing the items on the outside of the box, I kept a notebook that listed each box and what was in it. This is extremely important if you are not going to unpack completely at your first place. Probably less important if you are moving to a permanent home. We first drove to Texas with our two cars, our two cats, and the most fragile/precious items in the cars and two bicycles on top. Our son then stayed in our rented condo with the cars and cats, his computer, and the stuff he needed to live for 3 weeks. My husband and I flew back to CA. We rented a Penske truck (26 foot.) We got a moving company to move most of our stuff into the truck (with the exception of the stuff I listed above,) then drove ourselves in the truck to Austin. We got Square Cow Movers to just unload us at the rented condo. Time goes by, we bought a house 7 months later and at the exact same time, we sell our house in CA. We got Square Cow Moovers to move us to the new house, but let them use their van rather than renting this time, since it was a local move. But a week later, we had to fly back to CA to clear out the rest of the stuff in our house there. This time we rented a moving cube from U-haul. It was parked in our driveway. Our friends in CA helped us clean out the garage and move what we wanted, and what remained in the house, into the cube. We gave away a lot, too. We flew back to TX, and a week later, the cube was delivered. Family members here in Austin helped us to unpack it. That is it.
Both the cube and the rental worked well. I would say, however, that there was more damage to our stuff in the cube since, although we tried hard to protect everything with rented moving blankets, and tie things very securely, we are not professionals, and some things rubbed against each other and caused damage. In our rented truck, which was packed for us by professionals, we had almost no damage. So I sort of believe in have professionals pack up the truck or cube, even if they are not transporting.
It is really important to get rid of the stuff you don't need before moving it. Even if you do so, you will still find that you need to get rid of more stuff when you get to your new place, just because it doesn't fit or your set up is different. It is amazing to me (and not pleasing) how much time we have spent in the last two years wrangling our "stuff." Although it is necessary, it really makes you think about how we collect material items. But that's another topic.
Years ago we moved from Southern to Northern CA, and the company paid for a full service move. We had less stuff then, but it was much less complicated. If you have young kids to think about, you have another factor to consider. We never moved while our son was growing up (we lived in that house in Northern CA for 23 years,) so we didn't have to consider how to move him and his stuff. In fact, he was a great help with packing, driving, taking care of the cats, etc. Good luck with finding the best plan for your move!
Mama, there have been discussions of this topic from time to time. The absolute biggest tip I can offer is "Get rid of EVERYthing you don't absolutely need for the new place". Even some of the 'stuff' you will need is better bought after you arrive, rather than schlepping it 2000 miles. It's 'slightly' different if you pack yourself and have plenty of room in the truck...but only slightly .
As to packing your own goods, a couple of tips...
Buy and use more packing tape than you think you need. Use uniform stackable boxes for most things, instead of trying to stack a liquor box on top of a tomato crate. Shop now for boxes and other packing material. Almost everybody is having an 'organization' sale now. You might even find some of the plastic lidded totes to be useful, although I find those encourage the 'keep' instead of 'cull' mentality.
True professional packers/movers can work wonders. We helped a cousin empty his house and the one POD that was packed by pros now contains probably more than double the amount we could have packed...and it's all secured. For a 2000 mile trip, you don't want your belongings bouncing around, that's for sure.
Start early and sell as much as you can to help fund the move. You'll be surprised how little you will miss that collection of college text books or dishes that were already packed away and never used.
We moved from south Florida with just a scion Xb and the smallest U-Haul trailer we could rent one way. Paid about $100 to install a trailer hitch (which increases value of the car) and made the trip in three days. We sold most of what we had on Craigslist and bought similar items from Craigslist when we got here. Don't let your stuff own you, move with very little and you'll have a hell of a lot less headaches.
We moved from south Florida with just a scion Xb and the smallest U-Haul trailer we could rent one way. Paid about $100 to install a trailer hitch (which increases value of the car) and made the trip in three days. We sold most of what we had on Craigslist and bought similar items from Craigslist when we got here. Don't let your stuff own you, move with very little and you'll have a hell of a lot less headaches.
That sounds really nice, and it is great when you are starting out. When I moved to CA from TX, I was 21, and I moved only with what fit in my car. But 35 years of marriage, family, many gifts, necessary and unnecessary purchases, keepsakes, family antiques, records, etc. are not as easy to cull through as you make it sound. And the OP has school aged children, and that means there has to be a certain amount of stuff. You can't just throw out all of a kid's belongings right at the time they are moving and leaving their home. I sure agree that we shouldn't let our things own us, but this is often easier said than done. We may all succeed by degrees, but don't achieve the ideal. So the OP will need other measures besides the smallest U-Haul trailer.
That sounds really nice, and it is great when you are starting out. When I moved to CA from TX, I was 21, and I moved only with what fit in my car. But 35 years of marriage, family, many gifts, necessary and unnecessary purchases, keepsakes, family antiques, records, etc. are not as easy to cull through as you make it sound. And the OP has school aged children, and that means there has to be a certain amount of stuff. You can't just throw out all of a kid's belongings right at the time they are moving and leaving their home. I sure agree that we shouldn't let our things own us, but this is often easier said than done. We may all succeed by degrees, but don't achieve the ideal. So the OP will need other measures besides the smallest U-Haul trailer.
25 year marriage, lots of "things" that I will not willingly part with but also a budget to some degree that will allow a little more than a small U-Haul trailer.
Love the list and numbered box idea
Acacia thanks for the link, there is a lot of great information there
2 years ago we replaced the carpet in our house, this caused us to really sort through the stuff and get rid of a lot (thank goodness) now we will be doing more assessing, donating, tossing and selling.
We are even contemplating selling DH's older high mileage car and replacing it when we arrive. We don't want to drive 2 vehicles, we prefer to drive one and we don't want to tow his with mine that distance. The pop-up tent trailer is going to get sold too, from what I hear, its just to dang hot in TX to camp in something that does not have AC.
We are even contemplating selling DH's older high mileage car and replacing it when we arrive. We don't want to drive 2 vehicles, we prefer to drive one and we don't want to tow his with mine that distance. The pop-up tent trailer is going to get sold too, from what I hear, its just to dang hot in TX to camp in something that does not have AC.
Quite a few years ago, some friends were having a garage sale in preparation for their move from Atlanta to Palm Desert. They were 'trucking' one car and wondering how to get the other vehicle moved the 2000 miles. While setting up the garage sale, they parked their cars on the street. One of the very first customers asked "How much for the Galant?". My friends had no intentions of selling the car until that moment. It sold in about 30 minutes! Took them a half-day to buy a replacement when they arrived in the new city.
If you can get a decent price for the vehicle and pop-up, I'd sell them in a flash. You might find the trailer tent useful out here; but do you really need it? You're looking at >$300 in petrol to drive the 2000 miles, most likely...not to mention wear and tear on the vehicle AND driver!
Our biggest 'downfall' was the collection of antique furniture my DW got from her Mom. Full dining room plus three more pieces from the late 1700s mostly. Nice stuff; but I DO NOT look forward to moving it again...ever!(I know it will likely happen...I just don't want to be around for the excitement!)
Looking back, there's no way I would have moved the two larger CRT TVs(at ~100lbs each). One is still not in use since we bought flat screens for the new house. It's amazing how much easier it is to move a 42" LCD TV compared to even a 27" PIP CRT TV from 6-8 years ago!
I had a loose leaf binder for moving (still have it because we are not completely out of our boxes.) In it is my list of the boxes, with the contents of each, and each crossed out as we unpack it. In addition, I kept any estimates for moving, the rental contracts when we rented the truck and the cube, references for hooking up utilities when we got to the rental (as supplied by the realtor), notes on the driving route, etc. It was my moving notebook, and I don't know how I could have moved without it.
We got as many boxes as possible at Home Depot, because they are standard sized, and cheaper than anything we found. We got a few free ones from Craig's list, too. As we unpacked, whenever I got a pile of empty boxes and packing, I would put it as a free stuff on Craig's list, and always got a grateful person who would welcome the boxes to come take them off my hands. Also, when you number your boxes, put the number on the top and on all 4 sides, as you never know what side will be exposed when the box is piled up with others.
We actually donated our old car in California, as it probably wouldn't have made the drive. I took lots of stuff to our church rummage sale the summer before we moved, sold some stuff at our neighborhood garage sale, and when we went back for the final move I mentioned in my first post, I gave away tons to my friends and neighbors. We also sold a few larger pieces of furniture on Craig's list in the months before our move. I got rid of all my Christmas lights, as they were old, and I figured I should start over with lower energy use LED lights. It was helpful that when we went back for our final move, we already had our new house, so we knew, for example, the size of bed that would fit in the guest room (we gave away the remaining queen sized bed to a CA friend who helped us a lot in our move), we also knew at this point that our new house had ample ceiling and can lights, so we gave away almost all of our floor lamps and many table lamps (there was no ceiling lighting in most of our rooms in CA.)
How you choose to make the move depends on what you have waiting for you in Austin and many other factors. We are basically do-it-yourselfers with middle aged backs. Hence, we figured we could do our own driving, but wanted nothing to do with carrying furniture, so we got mostly professionals for packing/unpacking. We would not have done it the way we did if we did not have our adult son to help us, and if we had not been forced to move quickly by family circumstances, etc. We all have our own imperatives. Good luck on finding solutions that fit your family!
I have learned
A) not to move north in the winter, just cause its nice here does not mean it is so up north!
B) not to move south during summer cause wherever you move to will be face of the sun hot and also 99% chance of it being humid.
That's the sum of my moving and I have never taken those things to heart! Moved to NE in Feb and back to Texas in Aug.
Sideways moves were ok....
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