10 Tips that Will Speed Up Unpacking After Your Move

There are many moving pieces when relocating to a new home:  Planning, working with a realtor, home staging, selling your home, buying a new home, packing, hiring a trusted and professional moving company, and everything else in between. But once you get to your new home, there’s still plenty more to do – specifically, unpacking and organizing life in your new home. Follow these 10 unpacking and organizing tips to speed up the unpacking process:

• Only unpack what you need. How you pack affects your unpacking process. When packing, sort through your items and divide them into three categories: what you want or need to keep, what to sell or donate, and what to toss. Only bring items in the first category with you and your unpacking will go much more smoothly. 

• Keep your essentials bag. When preparing for your move, we suggest you pack and essentials bag to cover you and your family for the first few days or week at your new home:  toiletries, snacks, medicines, a few changes of clothing and any other essentials you won’t want to dig through boxes to find. Keep your essentials bag close at hand when arriving at your new home and before you unpack the rest of your belongings!

1. Create an unpacking schedule. Just like you should create a packing schedule to help you get everything packed before the move, so should you create a timeline that divvies up tasks related to unpacking. This will make the process seem much more manageable to you.
2. Make sure the right boxes get into the right room. When packing, label each box with its contents and the room where it should be placed at your new home. When unloading, ensure that each box gets placed into the right room to make unpacking as easy as possible. Less shuffling around when you’re ready to get unpacked!
3. Unpack what you need first. Whatever room you’re unpacking, find the most important items first and place them where you want them to go.  Clothing, toiletries, clean supplies, food, valuables, toys for the kids, etc.!
4. Go room to room. If the thought of unpacking your entire home overwhelms you, then focus on one room at a time.  It’s usually best to start with the kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms, then work towards the common living areas, attic/basement, garage, and storage areas.  Prioritize and take it one step/room at a time!
5. Plan where items should be placed before unpacking. Within each room, create a room plan so you know where to place furniture pieces and everything else you pull out of boxes in that room.  Then, when you’re ready to start unpacking, just follow the plan and fill in the blanks!
6. Kitchen organizing tips. The first thing you should do before unpacking your kitchen is to hook up major appliances.  Next, get the food unloaded and placed into the pantry for when you get hungry from unpacking all day!  Look through, and clean, your empty cupboards and cabinets and decide where plates and cups, pots and pans, and other kitchen items should go.  Then start from the bottom and work up or from the left and work right!  You’ll be done in no time.
7. Bedroom organizing tips. On first day in your new home, be sure to get beds assembled and made up with linens. This way, you can collapse after a hard day’s work. When you’re ready, unpack your wardrobe boxes full of hanging clothes into your closet first, then move on to the dresser drawers. Hopefully you packed the essentials bag, so you have a change of clothes in case you haven’t unpacked your boxes of clothes yet!
8. Bathroom organizing tips. Upon arrival, hang shower curtains and get out toiletries and towels. At the end of moving day, you’ll want to rinse off the dirt and sweat from moving and unpacking. Make sure to unpack the toilet paper, plunger, and soap before you need them!

We hope that you find these tips helpful! If you’d really like to make your move easy, call Central Maine Moving & Storage at 207-947-4114 to help with everything from packing materials to transportation.

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