Apparently, people hate moving. So many people have said to me 'how are you going to do it?' with dread in their voices, and 'what are you going to do with all your stuff?'. It's been confusing for me, because on the whole I'm not too worried about it. But then again, I am ruthless in the culling, and I kind of thrive on stress.
Here's what I've done so far:
I booked a skip, a classified ad for a garage sale, a 'moving out' style cleaning contractor, a carpet shampoo, and a removalist.
I've tagged the bedroom furniture, one sofa and the dining table and chairs - they'll be coming with us.
I sold the majority of the rest of the furniture on ebay over the past few weeks.
I safeguarded the yarn stash and the knitting books first, by packing it solidly in boxes and taping them up and labelling carefully. First things first!
I've emptied the linen cubpoard into hong kong shopper bags and taken them to the Salvos, keeping only what's on the beds now and only the best of the towels and table linen.
I've culled everyone's clothing in much the same way. This process was made easier by the spectacularly cheap clothes we all have. If I were one of those people who only buy classic, expensive items of clothing referred to as 'pieces', I couldn't have been so ruthless with my culling of the clothes, but then again we may not have had so many either.
By my side in each of these steps I've had a strong garden plastic garbage bag on hand, and filled it with rubbish as I went. On the weekends, there have been numerous trips to the tip. The great thing about the tip is that on the way to the tip face there are checkpoints with recyclers and junkyard gypsy style businesses who are happy to avail themselves of the stuff before you actually get there. So I'm pleased to say that only on one trip was the actual tip face used.
The penultimate step will be the weekend's big garage sale. I've spent most of the morning arranging my unwanted items on tables in the garage in preparation for the weekend. To be honest, it's very cathartic leaving my 'bronze urn' period behind, I'm in optimistic anticipation of starting everything fresh! In particular I'm looking forward to shaping a new space into a whole new interior vibe (and beleive me it's a big renovation job) - I'm filling up my pinterest boards with ideas on the new place, but that's another story entirely.
I'll go through the kitchen cupboards this afternoon, eliminating all that stupid tupperware that seems to multiply in there and never get used. Any unmatching flatware and cutlery will be placed into cane baskets for the garage sale, as will obscure ktichen utensils and paraphanalia (I'm looking at you pasta machine. I've had you for 15 years and never once used you. You're so gone.)
Tomorrow I'll do the books, placing the ones we don't want into the bookcase in the garage (doesn't everyone have one of these?) for the garage sale. I'm going to place a basket of archive boxes next to the bookcase and sell a box of books for $5. That should shift most of them (?), any leftovers will be donated to the Lifeline book fair.
Here's how the garage sale is shaping up so far.
After that it's a case of packing room by room, making sure I do a little bit every day, and that I have enough right-sized boxed on hand. At this stage, if it's not coming with us it's going in the skip.
Really, it's not that hard!
6 comments:
Well done. I hope there are many customers for the sale. Books? I'm just getting around to unpacking my boxes of books DIL and I packed 3.5 years ago. I am keeping probably less than 50% of them I don't really know why some were packed, except she packed a lot of boxes for me. I do think that probably I was not in the right frame of mind either psychologically or emotionally to have culled them then.
You've got somewhere to sleep and somewhere to sit. You're fine and you can consider what really suits both you and new home.
see, that ability to throw stuff out is whats going to save your sanity. i do like that about moving, when you suddenly realise whats actually important. i just have the putting things in boxes, the wrapping of plates in newspaper, and then the mind numbing boredom of unwrapping it all 30 minutes later. so stupid. when are they going to invent teleportation for gods sake? anyway, i cant wait to see your new space, i think its going to be fabulous xx
Great tips. I think you've made it clear that being organized is the key to making it move slowly. That and hiring some professionals to help you out!
You are so organised that you make house moving so easy. Good luck on the garage sale.
I love a good garage sale. I am a bit of a garage sale connoiseur and yours is shaping up to be a humdinger. I wish I could come and shamelessly pick over your stuff.
Well you got that sorted - I'm hiring you for my next move !
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