A tip for anyone moving house

[Blobby10]

I have just emptied my loft and discovered that my idea when we last moved in 2015 has been invaluable!

On every box I listed the contents on a piece of brightly coloured paper and stuck it on the outside along with the date(which was in big letters in black marker pen) . It sounds so simple but when you’re moving yet again (like me!) or just sorting out it saves so much time as it’s easy to spot which boxes don’t need sorting or repacking!

Fab idea. I do the same with boxes/bags/wrapped items that go in the loft. It makes life so much easier!

*@Poppins2016 * I'm so glad someone else does it!! Everyone laughed at me before we moved out of our previous house when they saw all my lists on green paper carefully taped to the boxes.

Surely if you have boxes you put in the loft in 2015 and have not needed since then, you could get rid?

I agree storing something untouched for 5 years at least (how long was the stuff not used before the 2015 move?) and then transporting it all again sounds a bit nuts. Why not look at the time and costs you would save by not paying to transport and wasting space for storage in new house?

I am having a major declutter at the moment and shocked at how long some stuff has sat unused in my house.

I do that! so much easier.

We moved 6 times in 10 years in the 90-00s and I found gradually packing “house” stuff up and labelling it from 30 to 1 and “loft” stuff from Z to A really helped to know what was really necessary in the first few weeks. I also had a ring binder with a list of each box’s contents.

We’re moving again soon after 10 years in this town. The longest ever. I still have my boxes stacked up and waiting. Last move our life was contained in 42 boxes. Hopefully fewer this time! Toys, story books and hand me downs are now a thing of the past.

Dying to know what is in those untouched boxes OP?!?

Agree with pp; whatever is in those boxes is just unnecessary clutter at this point... Why are you bringing them with you?

Ooh I too want to know what’s in the boxes!

:-)

ha ha - what's in the boxes? The ones I will definitely be moving with me contain things like first babygro's from each child, first shoes, favourite outfits, general memorabilia including a handful of my school books and other stuff from my childhood as well as the one with the wedding albums which I'm not quite ready to throw yet. Kids each have one of these boxes too! Lots of photos of children as babies and toddlers before I had a digital camera so actual photographs!

Boxes which will have their contents discarded include those with assorted ornaments, glassware and other bits and bobs which seemed important at the time, or which I wasn't ready to part with at that time .

Through various events I found myself leaving uni with just my clothes and the bits I had accumulated during my 3 years. I didn't have any childhood possessions at all.

I was given a surprise box of baby/child stuff of mine by my mum when I turned 40 (she'd kept it when she moved abroad so it hadn't got lost with everything else).

It was nice to reminisce but then I just binned/recycled/donated it all.

Either have it on display, use it or get rid OP. Stop lugging dead boxes through life with you. You're attaching meaning to material goods you don't even love that much you have to make a list of them to tell you!

All you're doing is storing up more crap for your family to sort once you die, ultimately.

BuzzShitBagBobbly i totally understand where you're coming from but I love history and if our ancestors had all chucked out the stuff they didn't need on a daily basis we wouldn't know anything about the past!!

The kids stuff I kept in case something happened to one of them - a friend of my parents lost their daughter when she was 12 and said the photos and mementos they had from her childhood were an immense help. I will be losing some of the memorabilia stuff - I really don't need the paintings done at school but I'm not getting rid of the Beswick ponies my grandma helped me collect, just because I don't have somewhere to display them right now. Or the photographs of the children growing up - todays digital world may be tidier but it doesn't give you the same memories that printed pictures do.

Get the photos in an album so that you can all see them have pleasure from them frequently rather than them being unseen in sealed boxes. Also digitise all do the photos so that you can all see them from anywhere in the world and anytime - incase they damaged or lost.

I also read about someone who had fragments of her late mother’s clothes (different prints and textures) made into a collage by an artist so that this could be on display as part of the home rather than boxed away.

Yes, this ^ y point was more about living with the things you love.

Have your treasured items out, so you can enjoy them. Make them into more permanent things that will give you pleasure. Frame/press/mount the stuff etc.

Don't just stuff them in boxes you only remember exist when you are moving house. What's the point?