I'm moving house in a week and I don't know how to pack!!!

Guys, I'm trapped in work :~(

Moving day is the 15th but we can't get any help until the 16th, which is the saturday. Mr Rumps is taking most of next week off to make a start but I have to work. I'm terrified at the idea of him packing my stuff! "junk, junk, bin, bin".

He lacks the sentimentality I have for old plane tickets and restaurant bills and will be ruthless in the disposal of such items.

Oh Rumpie. Just don't let him throw anything out. Much easier to feck everything into boxes and sort it out at your leisure at the other end than to be trying to sort it out now. Impress upon Mr. Rumps the importance of speed when moving.

Are you moving out of rented accommodation? Do you have to clean everything at the end of it? Because that is actually the crappest part of moving.

Man, our house is so dirty right now, I would gladly move rather than clean it.

It's a council house we're moving from and they insist we get rid of all our 'improvements' which is a great pity.

I'm sure the new tenant would have loved our nice lino instead of bare boards, and our practically new hall carpet but hey ho. We also need to take down shelves and remove blinds etc. It's a shame.

We're not obliged to clean anything but I'm too proud not to!

**Six weeks before moving day, fill one small box with books, seal it tightly, and write "books" on top in permanent marker. Then do nothing more until the day before your move.

oh, this is so dreadfully true...

Just did this a few weeks ago! Tho it was only my apartment, not a whole house of stuff.

I bought small document boxes with lids and hand-hold cut-outs for books, because even full they aren't too heavy to carry. Big cardboard cubes for linens and folded clothes and plastic things like tupperware, and for delicates that are wrapped in bubble-wrap and newspaper and therefore bulky but light. Hung-up clothes: I poked the hanger hooks through the bottom of a garbage bag (and tied them together so they couldn't shift) then knotted the open top, so all could be hung back up right away at new closet.

Dresser drawers were prepped by being pulled out and wrapped over and under with Saran-wrap (HELLO CLING-FILM) so they could be carried any which way (this turned out to be my best idea evar). Actually, anything that wouldn't fit in a box but needed to be sealed got wrapped with Saran-wrap, ie, my wicker basket of mending, my big reading pillow, my jewelry boxes so the drawers wouldn't come open. I taped up my folding bookshelves to keep them from unfolding inconveniently but since the tape took off some varnish in places I'm Saran-wrapping those, next time, too!

Wooden furniture WILL get splintered somewhere around the edges unless you wrap it up. If you have any heirlooms, drape them in old sheets or buy some rolls of bubble wrap or thin foam sheeting and tape it around delicate chair arms or legs or etc.

Hmmm, what else....

I just did the moving thing this past Wednesday, so the trauma is still fresh in my mind. What has been said about packing the least-used, least important things first is wise and true, as well as packing the heavier items first. Also, try to keep out enough clothing, dishes, pots, pans, etc., for the next few weeks and pack those the last of all, because it will likely take you a good three or four weeks to settle in. Or three or four months if you're like me and had to shift thirty-plus years' worth of built-up stuff (my parents') and are a sentimental bahstid with a real yen for wanting to hold onto as much as you possibly can.

If I had to do it all over again (God help me), I would have started the packing process months ago. Better to pay for storage for a couple of months, shift items to their proper spots a few days before the actual moving date, live in your soon-to-be-old residence with just the bare essentials, and then shift those bare essentials on the actual date of moving, than to do it the way I did it and end up with most of your stuff thrown about in the garage or still in boxes, unpacked. Still, at least most other people I've talked to who've moved recently have said their settling-in process lasted months, so I don't feel all that bad.

Oh, and you're going to want as much help as you possibly can. Pay them in money or food or what have you. Shop around for moving companies before the move. I don't know if you have a garage where you live now, but it could be useful for temporarily storing each box you end up filling/packing. Try to keep organized and keep boxes in stacks according to which room they belong to. Trust the heavy stuff to professionals. Um, there's so much more that I could say, but just thinking about the moving process exhausts me these days so I'll have to quit it now. Oh, and hopefully you and your husband are equally strong and can lift boxes together. It has been a royal pain for me, being the only person carrying the heavy boxes and other stuff over from the garage (where it was all dumped) into the corresponding room in the house where it belongs. Though at least I'm developing some pretty nice muscles.