Three Tips For An Easy Move

Moving Services In Gainesville, FL

Whether you’re transferring for a job, preparing for the end of a lease, or you’re planning to live with a romantic partner, the process of relocating personal belongings can quickly create stress. At UF Mover Guys, we know a thing or two about moving. Whether your objective is to vacate a dorm room, an apartment, or a house with great haste, or you want to simplify the moving process, the following tips will help make your upcoming move a breeze.

1. Declutter Before Packing

Even those with the tidiest living spaces have some degree of clutter. Whether it’s one small drawer filled with different kitchen utensils or a smorgasbord of household goods, clutter is no match for the decluttering process created by our movers in Gainesville.

Create Item Categories

Before you’re waist-deep in a collection of your personal belongings, pull out a piece of paper and a pen or open a spreadsheet on your laptop. Next, detail categories which describe the types of items you own. Add items to each category to simplify the decluttering process. Consider the following example or create your own to accommodate your needs.

Clothing

This should include every garment, article, or accessory in the home that you could wear, such as pants; dresses; suits; pajamas; jackets; shoes; handbags; socks; underwear; hats; and athletic clothing, among any other type of clothing, accessory, or footwear.

Books

Even if you’ve embraced the digital age, you’re bound to have a few books laying around the house. Our Gainesville movers are accustomed to packing-up textbooks and other types of books, such as cookbooks; magazines; cookbooks; kids’ books; photo albums; and more!

Documents

Some documents are sentimental, such as old birthday or holiday cards, personal journals, or school assignments. Other papers are essential, such as tax documents, birth certificates, social security cards, and any papers related to work that you may need in the future.

Kitchen

If there’s one area of the home that presents difficulty while moving, it’s the kitchen. Practically every individual has a kitchen in their home, with a range of foods; cookware; spices; herbs; silverware; dishware; and different types of portable kitchen appliances.

Bedroom

Items that don’t fall within the different categories you’ve established, such as clothes or books, might include bedding — such as sheets, pillows, and comforters — artwork on the walls, and electronics, which include TVs, streaming devices, gaming consoles, home audio systems.

Group Items Into Categories

This step consists of going through each room of the home, gathering all personal items, and placing each item into the respective category to which it belongs. To avoid complications while grouping, Gainesville moving professionals recommend keeping items from the same rooms together. This will make unpacking a much simpler, faster, and more organized process.

Get Rid Of Excess Belongings

Even if you hire a moving company to help with the relocation, reducing the number of items you plan to bring with you to the new home can help facilitate a quick moving day process. Once the items are categorized into neat piles, put into a box all of the belongings you no longer need, want, or use. This can include clothes you’ve outgrown, electronics from which you’ve since upgraded, and multiple sets of the same kitchen items.

Throw Away Unusable Items

Items you plan to throw away can be put in the nearest trash can or dumpster, or you can make a round trip to any of Alachua County’s Rural Collection Centers.

Donate Excess Belongings

If the items you no longer want may be of use to others, consider donating them to charitable organizations, such as Goodwill Industries of North Florida, Inc. or Alachua Habitat for Humanity. Contact the organization ahead of time to note the days and times in which donations are accepted.

List Online Items Of Value

As a local moving company started in Gainesville, UF Mover Guys also understand that some people have an entrepreneurial spirit regarding their belongings. If you’d like to try your hand in selling your unwanted items, eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace are all good options.

2. Pack Smarter, Not Harder

As a rule, packing is easier when you have less stuff. After completing an exhaustive decluttering process, what remains is preparing for transport the items you plan on bringing along to the new home. Go room-by-room and pack your belongings into boxes, finishing one area before moving on to the next. You can buy cardboard boxes, heavy-duty tape, packing peanuts, and a wide range of other moving supplies from UF Mover Guys. We can also provide you with tips for cutting moving costs by using the items you already own.

Packing is a step that you can avoid altogether by hiring movers to do it for you. Our team can provide full-packing or partial-packing services, as well as disassemble any large furniture that doesn’t fit through the front door. Among the advantages to hiring professional movers for packing is the ensured safety and security of personal items throughout each step of the moving process, from start to finish, including packing-up, transport, and delivery.

If you decide to pursue a do-it-yourself move, ensure the safety of your personal items by remembering to pack and move from heavy-to-light and from large-to-small. This pertains to the manner in which items are packed into the boxes as well as the order in which the boxes are loaded onto — and unloaded off from — the moving truck.

3. Start Planning Early

This tip may seem somewhat obvious. However, the lead-up to a move can be a busy, preoccupying time, as you focus on the number of things you have to do besides moving, such as dealing with a realtor, finishing up school or preparing for a new job. It’s possible, even understandable, that a few details regarding the relocation may slip your mind. But planning ahead for the move by several months can help you ensure that all details regarding your move are accounted for. Three to four months prior to moving day is the optimal time to schedule services with a moving company and create a to-do list. You can also avoid feeling stressed and overworked by creating an early timetable for decluttering and packing — distribute the moving tasks across multiple weeks and set aside a few hours to perform the tasks on designated days. Following these tips will help you make easier your upcoming moving day. For additional help or to schedule moving services with UF Mover Guys, contact us today!

Five Tips For Moving With Children

Family Moving In Gainesville, FL
Caring for young children is a full-time job. Adding a relocation into the mix can make for a complex moving process. These five tips from the Gainesville moving professionals at UF Mover Guys will help you simplify the process of moving with kids.

1. Hold A Family Meeting

To prepare children for a move, start with a family meeting several months ahead of moving day. Order-in from your favorite pizzeria — for recommendations in Gainesville, try Satchel’s Pizza, Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza, or MOD Pizza — gather the family around the dining table, and lay out in clear terms what everyone can expect (e.g., changing schools, leaving old friends, making new friends). By taking away the element of surprise and providing kids with realistic expectations, children are more likely to both adjust to and handle the move.

2. Ask Your Kids For Feedback

Parents know best, but kids always have an opinion. When it comes time to make decisions about the move, let the kids have their say. If you’re browsing homes for sale online, ask the kids what they like or dislike about your final picks. When you’re choosing a moving company, ask your children whether they agree with your choice of Gainesville movers! The point of this exercise is to provide your kids with a reason to feel invested in and involved with a significant aspect of the move.

3. Downsize Kids’ Rooms With Caution

The fewer items you take with you, the easier the process of moving. Every move should include downsizing — the process of donating, selling, and/or disposing of items you no longer need, want or use. But for the sake of household harmony, exercise caution when downsizing kids’ bedrooms and play areas. While it may be less of a burden to move five boxes of toys instead of ten, the stress of moving coupled with extreme downsizing can be too much change to handle for young children. Instead, consider hosting a yard sale once the move is complete.

4. Spend A Day As Tourists

When you live close enough to your next home to visit ahead of time, you can help your kids adjust to life in their new surroundings by spending the day as tourists. You can swing by the new house or apartment as well as the kids’ new school to help them become familiar with nearby, but new surroundings. It may also be beneficial to set aside a couple of hours for exploring the new neighborhood with the kids. If your family is moving to Gainesville, feel free to contact UF Mover Guys for tips about local points of interest.

5. Prepare A Moving-Day Survival Kit

A survival kit for moving day follows the same concept as the kits commonly prepared for hurricane season and other perilous occasions. But instead of batteries, you have fruit snacks. Rather than astronaut food, you have granola bars. Instead of a flashlight, you have coloring books, handheld game consoles or kid-friendly apps downloaded and ready for use on your smartphone. Other items in a survival kit for moving with small children include wet-nap moist towelettes, a change of clothes, a few select toiletries, and a few of your kids’ favorite toys. As the majority of your personal belongings will be packed into boxes, this kit can serve to provide you and your kids with the necessities until your items arrive to the new living space. For more moving tips or to schedule your next move, contact UF Mover Guys today!