Moving

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

Welcome to A Renter’s Diary! Over the next few weeks, we’ll follow Rebekah Hall as she and her boyfriend move from a home into a 800-square-foot apartment in Little Rock, Arkansas. From battling with the task of downsizing, to figuring out the quirks of the space, Hall will share all of the things you might forget or underestimate. This week she deals with the shock of how small 800 square feet really is: I have had incredible luck as a renter.

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.

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.

Before you pack one box in anticipation of your move to a co-op, you want to be sure you know everything about the building itself, whether it’s quirky rules, upcoming construction, or ongoing squabbles. This will go a long way to easing your move-in process. This will give you a sense of the issues facing co-op owners in the building and give you a heads-up about potential problems upon move in—and how they’ve been handled.

Last year, I packed up my belongings, converted my first home into a rental property, and chose to settle 50 miles away to be closer to my parents. My husband and I chose a $179,000 house in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, as our second home. This wasn’t our first time buying, so we were aware we’d spend a bit more money over the sticker price.

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.

If you have roommates, you probably know the standard move-in conversations that need to happen to ensure harmonious living. How will rent be collected and paid, whose television is going in the living room, and are peanut butter jars considered communal? But it’s important to make sure those A-plus communal living communication skills don’t fizzle come move-out time.

After my parents packed up and moved along to greener pastures—or more accurately, a one-level bungalow one town away—my partner and I decided to move into the darling, ramshackle, 1940s house in Ireland where I was raised. Yes, I chose to move back into my childhood home after my parents moved out—and though it was a dream-come-true to have a home of my own, it was also a more trying experience than I had expected.

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.

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.

It doesn’t matter how much you love your rental: The day your renewal notice comes in with a rent hike you never imagined, all those fuzzy feelings might just fly out the window. That said, how do you know if it’s worth it to move? From an economic standpoint, know that your next landlord will need the first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit, and for some apartments, a real estate broker’s fee.

You’ve just moved into your home and you have a to-do list a mile long. So should you take on each and every project that eventually needs to be done right now, or is ok to let some simmer on the back burner? We asked longtime homeowners to share the home fix-ups they regret not conquering right away—before life got in the way.

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.

Moving soon? You’re going to need packing tape—and a lot of it. But before you head to your local hardware supply store to pick up a few rolls, first think, “Is this going to cause more trouble than it’s worth?” From quickly losing adhesive to not being as durable as you’d like, bad tape can make moving a whole lot harder than it needs to be. And who knows how to avoid these sticky (pardon the pun) moving situations? The pros, of course.

If figuring out your mortgage and closing costs weren’t enough, moving into and furnishing your new home can be pretty stressful. And though you want to make your house your dream home right off the bat, you’re probably short on cash (and energy). Thankfully, you’ll be in your new house for awhile, so you have time to transform your place to match your vision. Still, there are some things you’ll appreciate having on day one.

With a few nifty helpers, moving day magically transforms into a much less daunting task.

You might not think an empty house or apartment as an especially beautiful thing. There’s a reason why houses are staged when they go on the market, and that is because people usually think of empty houses and apartments as sad and lonely. But, after you’ve signed on the dotted line and the home is yours, the emptiness can be a spectacular vision. Instead of loneliness, the space is a blank slate for all the happy memories (and awesome decor) to come.

On May 1, 2017, my partner and I squeezed all of our remaining belongings into an overstuffed Hyundai Elantra and departed on a one-way trip from Toronto to Vancouver. I say remaining belongings because an 2008 Elantra is no U-Haul. Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco but we left all of our furniture in the Salvation Army loading bay.

As a long-time New Yorker with over a dozen years in the Big Apple under my belt, the idea of moving to another city always seemed pretty laughable. Why would I bother when the best of everything can be found in NYC? Of course, crippling rents, frigid winters and soon-to-be-defunct subway lines can also be found in NYC.

The best piece of advice I received when I moved from Toronto to Vancouver last year came from a family member who had more than one major move under his belt. Having experienced the anxiety of packing and the self-doubt that comes with paring down, he told me, “you’re always going to throw away stuff that you wish you kept and bring stuff that you wish you left behind.

Yes, Malibu has a reputation for being economically extra. But here’s what most people don’t realize: Beyond the displays of wealth—from billion-dollar beachfront homes to YouTube’s targeted ads for spendy rehabs and private-gate installations—is a rustic chaparral and chill country life in the canyons. The beaches are so close, the hiking can start from your backyard and the stars and moon seem so much brighter out here.

Pop quiz: In which state is it illegal to milk another person’s cow, give your child a silly haircut and take more than three sips of beer while standing? Texas, of course. Unless you’re an outlaw dairy farmer with a mullet (to match your kid’s hairdo) who drinks her beer on the run, it’s unlikely the feds will come after you for any of the above indiscretions.

The housing market ebbs and flows: It’s just a fact of life. Sometimes it’s a buyer’s market, and sometimes it’s a seller’s. But if you’re looking to buy your first home, the unpredictability of the market can feel closer to an existential threat than a fact of existence. The cities with low housing prices you can actually afford might not be places where you want to settle down, with high unemployment rates and stagnant home values.

Don’t get me wrong— I love New York City. The caliber of cuisine, the convenience of cabs, the irreplaceable energy of eight million pavement-pounders who are craving to shake up their industries. But after living there for years what I wanted more than designer sample sales or expertly crafted cocktails or spontaneous adventures in the city that never sleeps is, well, sleep. I was tired of the town and ready to relocate.

So you just bought your first home—congrats! Now comes the fun part: settling into your new digs by filling it with necessary items. But after you spent all that money on securing your new home, you might not want to spend any more on the boring organization and maintenance tools homeownership requires. Save your dough for nesting, and get moving-in done with these essential 12 finds from Home Depot, all under $30.

My husband and I have our own outrageous life bucket list—big stuff like visiting all seven continents, going to a Super Bowl (him), touring Dollywood (me). Also on the list was to live in New Orleans—and after eight years of bustling city life in NYC, we drove a U-Haul filled with 800-square-feet worth of furniture along with one fat cat to the Crescent City. Check! There’s just something about New Orleans that gets to you.

When my partner and I left Chicago for San Francisco, we decided to hold off on moving in together. We hadn’t been dating for very long and wanted to establish our own, independent selves and lives in the new city. Plus, I had never lived by myself. I was enamored with the idea of creating my very own home, with no bathrooms to share or aesthetics to clash. I fixed my own appliances (with a little assistance from YouTube) and never split the rent or the bills for the wifi.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that moving is stressful, even if you’re a big time celeb like Mandy Moore. The This Is Us star shared a sneak peek into the process of setting up her new place via Instagram. According to PEOPLE, the renovation has been going on for a year, and Thursday was finally the first day of furniture install.

Living close to certain major subway stations almost always means paying more in rent—that’s a fact that will surprise approximately zero New Yorkers. That kind of convenience doesn’t come cheap, and everyone knows it. But if you’re looking to save money on rent, a recent study from RentHop can help you use that information to your advantage better.

If you’ve never lived in—or even been to—New York City before, you probably have a lot of misconceptions about what it’s really like, and the truth is, it’s often not the way it’s portrayed in movies. Living here comes with a lot of important lessons, so we asked real New York residents what surprised them the most about moving to the Big Apple.

Find boxes? Check. Pack your entire life into said boxes? Check. Hire movers to get said boxes to your new home? Check. You’ve got everything for your upcoming move totally covered, but there’s one small-but-important step you might be forgetting: Take photos!

I move a lot. Like, a lot. I even wrote an article about the benefits of being a serial mover like myself. And in moving so much, I’ve gotten really good at finding great apartments, the newest one always better than the last. (Ask my friends, they’ll back me up!) I’m currently in my seventh Seattle apartment with a view of the Space Needle from my living room. So I promise, I know a thing or two!

While moving is a great opportunity to pare down belongings and have a fresh start, it’s not on anyone’s list of Fun Things to Do. Spending money on the right things, though, can help keep your move smooth and successful. Whether it’s to stave off potential moving disasters or to make things just a bit easier on everyone involved, these are the things you should never scrimp on when moving. You’re moving on and starting over.

Moving is a huge process full of high and low points. Some moments will have you doing a celebratory dance, and others will have you more overwhelmed than you thought possible. Whether you’re signing the lease on your first apartment or you’re trading spaces for the 15th time, your move will probably look a lot like this: Your lease is almost up, and you’re ready to move into a new apartment.

“You’re moving?! Again??” I get that a lot. And for good reason. Over the course of ten years in Seattle, I have lived in six different apartments. While that may sound like a nightmare to some people, I have been thoroughly excited to move every single time. And I enjoy every second of my time in each new place. But right around the one and a half year mark, something happens. I get a little itch.

Well, less of a hassle, anyway. Moving into a place can be a lot of fun, but moving out, is nothing less than torture. Here are five laws, that, if you can stick to them, will make moving much less hellacious. What? Okay think about this way. You look around your current home and all the stuff that has to be hauled away and you might mentally decide how you’re going to organize it all in boxes. But back up.

After years of talking about it, we’re finally diving headfirst into the process of moving. Although we love our little house, our family has outgrown it, and we’d all like some room to breathe. My first task was to pack up some of the clutter that we’ve accumulated over the years to get the house ready for potential buyers. As I filled the first box, my ever curious four-year-old asked, “What are you doing, Mommy?

Everyone knows that moving is the worst, but sometimes your current place just isn’t doing it for you anymore. So should you to go through the trouble of uprooting your life to get an apartment upgrade? Get a reality check with this common sense equation. Let’s think about it like this: Basically, it means you should consider the benefits of a new place against not only the old place, but also the hassle and cost of the moving process itself.

Moving is maddening. Not only is it painful physically, it’s a mental exercise in mindfulness trying to keep everything organized as you completely uproot your whole life. If home is the peaceful place you can retreat to when the world gets hard, having to dismantle it can leave you free-floating in a sea of stress. There’s really only one way through a move (do it) but these eight tips might help you from losing your mind in the process. Like, seriously write it down.

After getting the key and walking into your new, calm, and empty apartment, what’s the first thing you do to make it your own? Move in the sofa? Pack the fridge with groceries? There are a thousand right answers and, according to one designer, one very wrong one. Most people take advantage of an empty apartment to paint the walls before they ever move in, but waiting to paint after you’ve settled in a bit makes for a more cohesive space.