Moving

As if Amazon didn’t already do everything, it's now dipping into real estate with a lead-generation partnership with Realogy, the parent company of national brokerages.

The thing that makes the biggest difference between an apartment and a "home" surprisingly isn't just your salary—it's your mentality.

If you're holding off on an IKEA run until after move-in day, you're missing out big time.

Though many New Yorkers dream of knocking down walls or upgrading to a bigger apartment to get a Carrie Bradshaw-sized closet, living with one of the smallest I'd ever seen for six years taught me that I don't need a walk-in closet. Ever. No one does.

It's easy to get so overwhelmed you don't know where to start when moving, but I'll make it simple for you: Here's one thing that you can do, right now.

Whether it's trying to save some cash, find more room, or give a relationship a real shot, it's likely you'll pack up everything you own in cardboard boxes and rent a moving van more than once before you hit 30.

Here's how experts say you can avoid dorm-life flashbacks.

To help make the moving process easier on Fido and Fluffy, we’ve asked animal trainers and behaviorists for their best pet-friendly moving tips.

Moving down the block or across town is stressful enough, but nothing compares to a long-distance move. Those Herculean tasks always remind me of an hilarious Hyperbole and a Half comic: Author Allie Brosh’s excellently described her move from Montana to Oregon as “nearly as stressful and futile as trying to run away from lava in swim fins.” Packing up all your belongings is one thing. Relocating nearly everything in your adult life—utilities, friendships, jobs, etc.

There's a good chance you're either over- or underestimating how long your move will take.

Moving is already a pain under the best circumstances, but there are even more reasons to dread it during the summer. It’s when the vast majority of moves take place, says Adam Doron, CEO of Unpakt, a booking and pricing site for movers. Because demand is high, prices are often at a premium and logistics are trickier than in other times of the year. But you don’t have to abandon your possessions curbside, Oregon Trail-style.

When I had to coordinate moves across continents three times in the span of a decade, I quickly realized I had been living in a bubble, unable to see my truest self.

Moving. UGH. Packing your entire apartment and schlepping it across town? I’d much rather use those cardboard boxes for just about anything besides moving. (Fort building competition, anyone?) But, alas, people do move. In fact, about 35 million Americans do every year. So why do that many people put themselves through all that labor and legwork? Well, Porch, a company which connects homeowners with home-oriented professionals, asked more than 1,000 people just that.

Moving is one of life’s most stressful events, and it’s no wonder why. It’s expensive. You have to go through all your belongings and decide what no longer sparks joy. Then there’s all the packing. This is all before actual moving day rolls around, which adds physical labor to the equation. It’s not hard to see why the whole thing generally makes people want to pull their hair out.But it doesn’t have to be that way!

It’s so easy to let our things pile up until moving day when you look around and can’t believe how much stuff you have. But wouldn’t it be far more productive to do regular “cleanse-outs,” where you routinely look at your stuff with a critical eye? We posed that question to Ali Wenzke, a moving expert—she and her family have moved 10 times in 11 years in seven states around the U.S.

It can help you haul literally anything.

To help make your move as stress-free as possible, we're sharing four pieces you should always replace once you're in your new space.

If you follow New York’s freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on social media, you know she’s pretty transparent about navigating the ins and outs of her new role—and new life—in DC. Back in November, she spoke with the New York Times about the realities of her transition from bartender to legislator: “I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real.

There is no shortage of things to see and do in the nine states that make up the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia). I’ve loved living here for most of my life, and even decided to move back after a grand three-year adventure living in Alaska.

Moving can be a giant pain in the butt. Yet, while you’re packing up your entire existence, it’s a great opportunity to assess which of your possessions you no longer need or want (and perhaps those that don’t spark joy?) including furniture. While it’s tempting to kick old furniture to the curb and let the garbage man take care of it, it’s much more sustainable and useful to donate such items to a charity, such as Goodwill or The Salvation Army. The best part?

I have a confession to make: I haven’t watched “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.” But that’s mostly because I don’t watch anything. Watching the newest show right when Netflix releases it seems like a waste of my brain energy when I would rather be thinking about Henry Cavill’s Mission: Impossible-Fallout mustache or that Chrissy Teigen Instagram post of John Legend on vacation slowly rocking Miles in his swimsuit when she asks “Can you do GIFs on a video?

When you move a lot, you tend to reflect on all of your stuff a little more often than the average person. If you’ve been living in the same space for years—or decades—your trinkets give you a sense of stability and ownership. But when you’re paying movers by the hour, all that extra stuff starts losing its sentimental charm and instead can look like expensive dead weight. I know this firsthand—I’ve moved 12 times in the past 10 years.

How to get rid of the things weighing you down while you move—without having to muster strong feelings about your toaster.

If moving is on your to-do list, figuring out how many boxes you need to get the job done shouldn’t stress you out. And, while there’s no exact science to box acquisition, the experts have a few tips you can follow to avoid either buying way too many—or, realistically, too few.

These five places in the United States are especially noteworthy when it comes to being tiny home-friendly.

The closets of my two-bedroom apartment overflowed with things from literally every stage of my life. Though the craft supplies, decorations, and souvenirs could be evidence of a life well-lived, these stuffed storage bins overwhelmed me—a reminder that the clean, clutter-free, minimalist-inspired home I dreamed of was becoming less of a reality each day. I work from home.

Studies say moving ranks right behind divorce and death on the stress scale. So with my moving day right around the corner (or, let’s be real, sneaking up on me), it’s no wonder I was feeling a mirage of emotions: stress, excitement, joy, confusion, to name a few. Mostly, the thought of unpacking filled me with overwhelming dread. But I had a realization: Why did moving have to be scary? Why couldn’t it be a fun, exciting, and—most importantly—controlled experience?

When my husband, son, and I moved into our new apartment eight weeks ago, we fell in love with our new warm and welcoming building as well as the energy of the neighborhood itself. While looking at the place, we noticed a fire station two blocks away—but how busy could it be at night? Ha! Joke was on us because rare is the night when New York City’s finest don’t race up the avenue outside our windows on some life-saving mission.

Every IKEA teems with last-minute movers the first and third weekends of the month—it’s just a fact. And if you are like me, you also probably accept as fact that if you’re moving, you are going to have to do an IKEA run the moment after the movers leave.

Moving is the worst! Or, more accurately, packing is the worst. Getting set up in a new home is fun, and a chance for a fresh start. But packing is a slog, and if you’re not at least a little strategic about it, you can make more work for yourself. One essential part of your packing process should be decluttering. Do not put something in a box if you don’t want it to live in your new kitchen!

​There’s a reason professional movers are way better at packing up our stuff than we are. Here's how they deal with cardboard boxes in expert fashion.

When my boyfriend and I decided to move in together after a year of long distance, I knew there would be our share of compromises. One in particular would be combining the contents of two apartments into one singular household. Though I had done a thorough cleaning of my space and came out with a chunk of items to throw out, sell, or donate, I still naturally had accumulated a good amount of things.

Just because those pesky things aren’t sitting in your closet anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re somewhat easier for another person to have to deal with.

You will not deal with the box later. You’ll pass by that box every single morning and night and feel pangs of anxiety until you hide the box and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season three of “Insecure.” In the finale of what Issa Rae calls a “starting over again” season of “Insecure,” our main character, Issa Dee, takes a look around her new-ish apartment on the night of her 30th birthday, unpacks those boxes sitting in the corner and finally starts to decorate her new space. Why now? Issa is finally starting to have clarity in a way that we haven’t seen before. Picture Issa Dee, season one.

When it comes time to move, you will be grateful you have these.

Moving in with your significant other can be a weighty next step in your relationship (or one taken lightly to save on rent), but no matter how seriously you take it, it’s going to affect how you work in the kitchen. If you were living solo before, it could be a bit of a shock to the system to share this busy space with another being. And even if you’re used to roommates, it’s a totally different animal to share the kitchen with someone you love romantically.

We’re back with the final installment of A Renter’s Diary! We’ve followed Rebekah Hall in her first month moving from a single family home into a 800-square-foot apartment in Little Rock, Arkansas. She’s had to figure out how to downsize and work around the quirks of the space. Last week, Hall shared how she shopped around her apartment (and her parents’ home) for no-cost kitchen storage solutions.

When going from a 2,200-square-foot traditional home to a 300-square-foot renovated RV, my family and I ended up getting rid of 80 percent of our belongings. Downsizing is an experience that I recommend to anyone—no matter the size of your home. While living in a tiny vehicle might not be for everyone, I believe that getting rid of all that overwhelming “stuff” can help you live simpler and sometimes even happier.

It was time to be inventive and put to use one of the oldest tricks in the book. Here's what I've come up with so far:

Americans love stuff. We store it in our homes, garages, basements—and when that’s all filled, we pile it in to storage spaces across the country. But sometimes when space is hot commodity, all that stuff creates a huge problem and the idea of renting additional storage space can seem like a good answer. If you’re toying with the idea of storage space, you’re not alone: In a 2017 study, the non-profit Self Storage Association found that approximately 12.

Why bring that negative energy into your new home?

The other week, we ran a post with instructions detailing how to pack up dishes and glassware for a move. To do it, we teamed up with Lior Rachmany, the CEO and founder of Brooklyn-based Dumbo Moving + Storage. He’s moved more than 6,000 apartments throughout his career, so he had a ton of smart tips and points. One really stuck with us more than the others, though.

E. L. James might have had a big hit on her hands with “50 Shades of Grey,” but I have a bone to pick with the bestselling author: There are more like 50 million shades of gray. Don’t believe me? Just trying picking a gray paint color for your home. That was the dilemma facing me when buying our first home two years ago. I wanted to move in as soon as possible, which meant getting the house painted (while empty) ASAP.

With a move on the horizon, chances are you have a massive closet clean out on your schedule or the vision of redecorating your living room (and finally discarding that sofa from college) is in your head. But when moving day gets closer (and you realize how much stuff you really have), all you want to do is lie down. Well, there are actually easy ways to make sure your discarded items and furniture go to worthy causes—and in many cases, you don’t even have to take off your slippers!

There’s no better time to get organized than moving in a new house. You have a blank slate to work with—but you also have that box full of clutter you were too overwhelmed to purge while moving. While it can be daunting to know where to even begin corralling stacks of papers or organizing the household junk drawer, there is at least an organization baseline everyone can start at. What is this mysterious model I speak of?

As a good rule of thumb, you should never be too far from a Target. I found out that this is especially true if you’re planning a move; and boy, was I ever planning a move. I was a young newlywed who would soon be shipping off to Alaska to join my husband at his military station.

If you’ve been in a relationship that’s gone south, you know there’s a point in time where you can’t stand to look at the sh*t your ex has left at your place—but you don’t necessarily want to throw them out either (because what if you end up getting back together?!) Well, a new service will solve this problem for you (without having to pull a mutual friend into the middle of your drama.

If you moved in a rush, you probably just tossed everything in a box. But while you’re setting up the bathroom in a shiny new apartment, one look at your shower curtain liner sends you into a panic: You suddenly notice the bottom of the liner is brown or gray or cloudy. When was the last time you cleaned this curtain? If you have to ask, then it’s time to treat yourself and your new space to a fresh curtain liner.

Moving is expensive enough as it is, so nobody wants to get the bad news that they aren't getting their security deposit back due to a dirty apartment.

Just when you mastered your home’s most menacing decor challenges (lack of storage, too little light, too much light…), it’s time to move and do it all over again. You may feel like you’ve been saddled with an interior design Rubik’s Cube–you’ve got all the pieces (the dressers, the side tables, the lamps), but can’t quite work out how to arrange everything seamlessly.

Come move-out time, getting every penny back of that rental deposit is the name of the game. Chores like replacing the stove top drip pans and spackling the walls where your TV once hung can certainly help. But the move-out cleaning ritual I’ve found to have the biggest impact, while requiring the least amount of effort, is done with a dollar store find: A melamine foam pad, or, if we’re talking in brands, Mr. Clean’s Magic Erasers or Scotch-Brite’s Easy Erasing Pad.

​I have a cautionary moving tale for you that (thankfully) didn’t happen to me.

I love moving in and decorating quirky, irregularly-spaced rooms, But taking measurements? Not so much.

Moving more often than most people has taught me to be smarter about the whole thing. And in honor of me moving—again—next week, I'd love to share my biggest moving secret.

Before I put an offer in on my house, I already knew all the neighborhood quirks I would encounter once I moved in. I knew I’d be able to faintly hear a train at 10:05 p.m. most nights, that I’d be living along the high school homecoming parade route, and that one of my elderly neighbors recently had a stroke and would love to have help walking his dog. Surprisingly, I didn’t get this intel from my real estate agent or even the current owners.

What do you do when you’re a young couple making the transition from Army life in rural Alaska to civilian life anywhere you want? You find a place where everything is within your reach. It didn’t take us long to find and fall in love with Charlotte, North Carolina. With just around 900,000 people, it’s the biggest city in the state, offering diversity, easy transport options, dining, shopping, ample career opportunities, and a great sense of community.

When I moved into my studio apartment in New York, I was lucky enough to have my mom with me to help facilitate the move. And she did facilitate everything—from how to efficiently pack a box to how furniture should be oriented; she was a one-woman moving machine. But the most important lesson I took from her was this: Never pack your cleaning supplies! Why?

These little tricks will make it much easier to pack up your kitchen.

Over Fourth of July Weekend, I was running errands with my mom while visiting in suburban Chicago, Illinois. We headed to the Dollar Tree (also known as her and my grandma’s “favorite store”) because she wanted to pick up some plates she had been longing after. Bless my mother for practicing the “only buy if you think about it after you leave the store” trick even at Dollar Tree.

Moving can be intense. When you’re trying to haul all your stuff out, the damage you’re potentially making on your rental floors is probably not as on top of your mind as convenience. But there is one inexpensive product that has done double duty by making my move easier and getting me my security deposit back on more than one occasion: furniture sliders.

For me, Target became a non-negotiable nearby amenity while I was growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada. I loved grabbing a coffee from Starbucks, thumbing through video games, and thinking about purchasing Threshold floor lamps for an apartment far away. Now, as an adult with disposable income living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it’s all about the routine runs of charcoal face masks, $15 joggers, Spindrift seltzers, and on-trend serving ware for hosting.

The scene: You move into a new apartment and discover it will take days before you can get your wifi up and running. Perhaps worse, you have to take a vacation day to wait around for the internet provider to show up during a liberal time window. It’s a true modern day horror story; go ahead and name your new network Silence of the LAN to commemorate it. Of course, this could be even worse if you forgot to get your electricity up and running before move-in day.

Everybody knows that pizza is the moving-day meal of choice—pizza shops are everywhere, open continuously, and deliver. Bonus: You don’t need plates or silverware to eat pizza, and everyone loves it! But what about the first morning in your new place? If your boxes haven’t arrived yet or you just haven’t gotten around to unpacking (moving day was stressful enough!), you’ll need some basic-as-it-gets kitchen supplies so you don’t have to turn to takeout.

Whether you’re moving to another state, or just down the block, packing can be an ordeal. And when you’re in the process of a move, you may find yourself wanting to purge a lot of items. “Ask yourself why you want to keep the item. Is it for sentimental reasons? Does it spark joy? If it’s not for any of the two reasons above, chances are you can get rid of it,” says Allison Dunn of Organized Spaces by Allie.

The stars aligned perfectly and you signed a lease on a coveted apartment or emerged victorious in a bidding war for your dream home. Congrats! Now, it’s time to unpack and get settled in. Sure, you don’t need a full-on horoscope to tell you where to start; but your zodiac sign might inspire you to prioritize one room, or space, above all others. To help, we asked astrologists which room you should unpack first—based on your sign.

You’ve chosen your moving company and booked the movers, but there’s one thing that still needs to be done before the big day: packing up your belongings. Before you get too excited and begin stuffing your boxes with all your stuff, make sure that you’re setting yourself up for a smooth and efficient move.

You just bought a new home or signed the lease for an apartment you’ve been coveting. Spending your discretionary dollars on a great piece of art or furniture sounds a lot more fun than blowing money on boring moving boxes and tape, right? If only it were that easy: Moving can be a pricey endeavor once you layer in all of the costs associated with professional movers, rented trucks, housing deposits, and miscellaneous fees.

Before you pack up that lemon tree in the yard, you’re going to have to make sure it’s not a “problem plant” that could get you a hefty fine.

Packing up to move is the worst—and the kitchen just may be the trickiest space of your whole house because of all those small, fragile items you have to carefully wrap and contain. On the flip side of that: Unpacking in your new-to-you kitchen (as long as nothing’s broken) is just about the best. I know, because we just moved into a new house and we got to start all over—yay! Starting fresh in a new place is an opportunity to really make that space work for you.

I needed clever storage solutions or the spacious apartment I dreamed about would turn into a cluttered reality. Luckily, I found random solutions that helped me store everything.

I’d like to start by saying: I hate moving. I am known to be extremely dramatic when it comes to getting organized, packing up my belongings, and essentially living in a real-life obstacle course (dodging suitcases, stepping over boxes) while I await my move. But there was one aspect of my recent relocation—only 20 blocks, but in New York City that still feels like an undertaking—that was justifiably overwhelming: The Purging Of The Bookshelf. Sounds like a horror movie, right?