Moving

Your landlord just sent a lease renewal form, but you’re not sure you want to sign it again this year. The rent is going up, the parking situation sucks, and the upstairs neighbors always seem to drag furniture across the floor in those fleeting seconds between consciousness and sleep. The average rent nationwide has been rising, but market rate rents — those advertised to new renters — are climbing even faster, according to new research by Zillow.

The sweet taste of freedom after leaving your parents’ house or the dorms for the first time for an apartment of your very own is intoxicating. You can go get sugary cereal in the middle of the night if you want! You’re grown-up! It isn’t all junk food binges and co-ed sleepovers, though. Once the novelty wears off, living in a first apartment can mean learning hard life lessons. Here are six things I wish I had known before I moved into my first apartment.

Is 2016 the year you move from your current apartment to a compact studio? One-room living can be a great way afford living closer to the action in a city — but it comes with challenges. Even more challenges if you’re downsizing to a studio from a larger apartment. Read on for ways in which you can make downsizing a little easier if you’re moving into a studio in the near future. With small studios, come small kitchens.

Consider packing your bags for Oklahoma.

Henderson, Nevada, anyone?

Trading Starbucks for snakes was more than I'd bargained for.

Safely moving your couch is about so much more than lifting with your legs (but you should definitely make sure you're lifting with your legs).

And how to avoid them.

From hanging garments to in-dresser pieces.

From financial risks to emotional ones.

From questionable quotes to credentials.

Calling all bookworms.

Step one? Bag it up.

From packing files to glassware.

He's sawed, hauled, and expertly reconstructed so many sofas.

According to someone who did.

According to a professional.

No need to hold onto those expired spices.

It's not always easy.

Consider making use of the things you already own.

And it's not on a coast.

Here's how to do it.

Next stop, paradise.

Keep your towels close and your toothbrush closer.

It's not when you'd think.

It's pretty darn scary—but totally doable.

White noise machines are key.

While a short-term move may never be stress-free, there are a handful of things that can prevent the event from feeling completely traumatizing.

Nothing prepares you better for co-habitating than… co-habitating.

You know what they say when you assume: You make... well, you know.

Let’s go Goodwill hunting, renter-style.

Save money—and a little sanity, too.

Yeesh! With a price this high, no wonder college graduates are delaying move-in day.

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.

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.

You don’t have to wait until the stressful days before a big move to feel that freedom. Here's how to declutter like you're moving without actually doing it.

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.

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.

Everything must go.

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.

It’s no secret that packing everything up and moving is both exciting (a new space! A new home!) and a true nightmare. (Seriously, how do you accumulate so much stuff in one household?) But while packing up boxes isn’t the most fun thing in the world, there are some silver linings. For one, you’ll get to KonMari the heck out of your place. Two… okay that’s basically the only silver lining.

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.

Moving in together is a huge step in your relationship. You’ll soon learn how to share a home together, but also how to kindly and confidently share your true feelings, like when your sweet and lovely partner asks what you really think about that old, worn-out chair of theirs.

So you’re moving, huh? Congratulations! While moving itself is stressful, the prospects of a new place are usually always exciting. It’s a fresh start — a chance to reorganize and redecorate! But where do you start? I’ll tell you: You start before you move in — especially in the kitchen. Here are five things to take care of before you unpack that first kitchen box.

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.

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!

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?

It can help you haul literally anything.

You step out of your car at an open house and walk into what looks like your dream home. It’s perfectly picturesque from the outside, but as soon as you get through the doorway, you see it—there’s a giant “Live Laugh Love” decal stuck onto the living room wall. For legions of prospective homeowners, real estate agents tell us that word art tends to be at the top of the cringe-inducing decor list—and, point blank, word art makes it hard to sell a home.

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.

Dear Alice, My boyfriend is moving into my apartment. All of the decor in my place is new, in great condition, and I’ve spent a lot of money on it. It is mostly neutrals with a little bit of blues and greens. When he moves in he insists on hanging up his movie and video game posters and placing his little character figurines around the place.

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?

It looks like our favorite royal foursome is splitting up!

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.