And, yes, I’ve started uncluttering in my home, but I have much, much more to do — even though I never accumulated as much stuff as my mom and dad.

You said “…she was unwilling to make the tough decisions…” It wasn’t really that she was “unwilling”, she was just unable. Moving around so much I can understand why she was reluctant to move again once she had settled down in the home where your father died. She already suffered the loss of him leaving her- now she had to leave “him” all over again. So emotionally stressful for both of you.

Because I have to move around so much I do look forward to the day when I can actually stay put. And the dilemma that you faced with your mom is what I want to avoid for my family. While I am still young enough & mentally healthy enough I’ve already given them the things I want them to have (that I was only storing away in boxes anyway!). The other things that I’ll want them to have (that I’m still using so they can’t have them now!), or that I want to go to certain organizations or charities, or to certain friends, I have written down in a note book, along with all the other instructions about what I want, who I want called, etc. Not stuff that is so crucial that lawyers & such have to be called in (THAT is a separate issue!). I don’t really have anything of such value that anyone would want to fight over anyway after I am gone (if they want to start a family feud over my blender, well I am just happy to know I won’t be around to see that nonsense- and I’ve told them all so!).

I want to be proactive about this stuff because one never knows when something could happen- a sudden debilitating illness, Alzheimers, an accident… If I go crazy & suddenly become obstinate, I want my family to have a guideline of what I want while I still am clear thinking.

nj progressive, after this experience with your mom you probably are able to think ahead about how you’d want it to be if you end up in the same situation. Same for your husband.

I hope things are going well now.

I’m not sure where you could find these, but at one job my husband worked at he was able to pick up some pill-shipping containers. They are round “cardboard” and have metal tops that lock in place. Since they are designed to ship medicine/pills, they are considered crush-proof. They don’t hold a lot, but they were awesome for packing my delicate china and glassware. It won’t prevent breakage if they’re dropped , but I still feel better about using them.

Before my husband and I went to Mom’s place, I had called and scheduled appointments with 6 moving companies to come and give quotes, scheduled an appointment with an estate sale specialist, and had spoken with Mom’s health insurer and made appointments with her doctors for one last visit for Mom to get prescriptions and copies of medical records.

I had even made a worksheet for me to use taking notes when I spoke with each moving company, so that I had all of the phone numbers, contact people, and had already asked some key questions (the move was going to be in two steps; first emptying her house, with things going into storage, then the move to the new state a few weeks later when the new house was finished; Mom was going to stay in an assisted living facility during the interim and my sister took care of visiting all of the assisted living facilities that I had contacted and made the selection!).

On our first day at Mom’s, I had two big pads of sticky notes, and I went around the house tagging furniture, art work, rugs, and other items into two categories: what was moving and what was going into the estate sale.

The next few days while I met with movers, made arrangements for donating some items, and started working on final billing arrangements with utilities and other local businesses, my husband started organizing Mom’s financial records.

By the end of the first week, we had quotes from all the moving companies, and sat down with Mom to make a selection. The estate sale company was going to be able to do much more than we expected (although they took months before sending the check to Mom): they photographed every item, cataloged it, then held a three-day online auction. A pickup date was scheduled for local buyers, and shipped items to out-of-state (and out-of-country) buyers. We made arrangements with the realtor for a cleaning service.

Moving day was going to be Thursday of the second week. Four packers came on Tuesday and Wednesday, and they were great. I just wish I could have cloned myself to be with each of them. There were many items that I hadn’t had time to tag as being part of the estate sale, so more things got moved than we had really intended, and my sister had to take many, many things to Goodwill for charitable donations.

But Mom was in poor health, and was grudgingly going along with the move, so she was unwilling to make the tough decisions about what should go to the new place and what should be sold or donated, so if there was any doubt, it got moved, and a decision could be made later when she saw how much space she had in the new place.

Emotionally, it was hard for Mom. Her health had been declining for several years, so we were asking her to give up a measure of her independence. We were asking her to leave the last home that she had shared with my father, who had died six years earlier, which was very difficult for her. But it was also gut-wrenching for me, for my sister, and my husband. Mom fought us about everything, and was angry and openly hostile.

When my sister and I were growing up, our family had moved several times, as Dad moved up the corporate ladder. Even after I was married, my husband and I had moved ourselved several times, when we were young and changing jobs. I’ve had lots and lots of moving experience, but this was the hardest move ever. Moving yourself is hard enough, but moving a parent is much, much harder.

Being organized helped a lot. I had a single small notebook that I used for everything, plus my interview sheets for the moving companies. I had my laptop with me, and could update my to do list daily.

I agree that it is vital to a successful move to start packing as soon as you know you will be moving! Pack those knicknacks, pack up all the stuff hanging on the walls, pack up everything that is not a day to day necessity. Each day make a goal of packing up one room.

Freecycle is my friend! I can get boxes or totes that I need & get rid of things I don’t need. A few weeks before I move I sign up for the local Freecycle of my new area & check what’s being posted to give away. Different areas of the country are offering up different “local flavor” furnishings, draperies, dishes, etc. It helps give me a feel for the local scene (furnishings in Florida, for example, are WAY different than in New England. What may look fabulous in your house in Nebraska may look down right ridiculous in your adobe style home in New Mexico!) Then if I see something posted that I will need (like a table or couch) I contact the person & let them know I’ll be arriving on a certain date & would REALLY appreciate the item, “as I’ll be arriving almost empty handed”. More often than not, that person will hold on to the item for me until I arrive! (And ALWAYS do the right thing- Go Pick it Up when you get to your new home! Even if you end up hating the color or style, you have a free temporary couch that you can give away later!). An added bonus: I’ve made a new friend/contact before arriving! THAT really helps. And often times they’ll even offer up some other things that could come in handy! (That way I know I don’t even need to pack & bring my lamp, or bookcase, etc- I’ve got one waiting!) I’ve found that people giving things away on Freecycle are generous by nature & I always repay in kind!!!

My best packing & moving trick- I am one of those freaks who have saved all of my pilfered plastic milk crates from my college dorm days. (I have even acquired some of the cool looking older metal milk crates & wooden beer cases, as well- functional AND decorative!) I am lucky that I have the coveted rectangle shaped ones, not just the square 4 gallon size. They make the BEST moving boxes because they are already color coded (my orange crates are for kitchen items, blue crates for living room, red for bedroom, black for misc.). They stack perfectly, don’t hold as much as large boxes so they can’t be packed heavier than I am able to lift, and they don’t crush down and tip like card board. I also have the clear plastic totes (with lids) for my sewing & craft supplies (being clear, I can easily see what is inside without having to untape them like card board).

After I get to my new home the crates are easily stacked into shelving arrangements inside my closets, basement, garage, laundry room, etc. I’ve even stacked them with a board on top to use as a table or desk until I was able to get one from Freecycle!

Craziest after move use of the milk crates: I couldn’t bring my bed so I laid out all the empty crates (though some were packed with stuff I was storing), tied them together with saved shoe strings (don’t throw the extra shoe stings out! A million uses!), and I placed my futon on top! Voila, instant bed! It works, though it’s difficult to dust & vacuum under there.

Happy Moving!

One other tip I might give is that if you own furniture that must be dissembled and reassembled in the new place, take a digital photo or have the movers do it. Especially with certain knockdown furniture, not mentioning any brand names (>>cough<>cough<<), it's not always evident how the parts fit together. My mover was smart enough to take a pic with his cell phone so they had something to refer to.

My seller was kind enough to leave me toilet paper in each bathroom! To me, a functional toilet is the single most important thing not only in houses but also hotel rooms…even more important than a functional tub/shower.

I also used freecycle to give away things I didn’t want to bring with me to the new house.

Then, the first night in the new place, when everyone is tired from all the unloading, the kids are cranky, and you have no idea where everything is, everyone will at least be able to quickly make beds, take a shower and drop into bed.

We had started off writing on the boxes but in order to make the most of the room in each box we weren’t always putting related things in one box, so the list would get too long.

So I came up with the inventory system, and even though I felt like I was probably being a control freak about it at the time, when we got to the new house it worked perfectly, we were using the printout of the inventory to find things while we were waiting for work to be done on rooms before we could unpack properly. When a box was emptied and flattened I’d cross the number off the list.

It made things a lot less stressful. I also did a rough schedule of what needed to happen on moving day and when, because we couldn’t really think straight on that day through nerves, so it was good to see everything was going to plan, and that we’d done the final things we needed to.

You always need more boxes than you think you need. uhaul is nice cause they will buy back so buy more than you think you need – chances are, you won’t need to send them back, but they will take them if you do.

I used color coded paper for different categories, not just rooms, since I have TONS of kitchen gear, but very little bedroom stuff. My categories: Bedroom/Bathroom; Media; Knicknacks; Kitchen Tableware; Kitchen Cookware; Storage. I labeled two sides of each boxes and wrote details on the sheet. So it would say: Media – Fiction Books or Kitchen Tableware – soup bowls, small plates.

I just moved two weeks ago, and we’re still unpacking. We merged two households, and I’d give an 80% to one end and a 35% to the other end. Here’s what worked and what didn’t work:

I started collecting free boxes as soon as I knew we’d be moving, about 6 weeks in advance. The result was that I had enough boxes to pack 95% of my things. He spent $50 and bought a stack of boxes about a month ahead, that wound up being enough for about 1/3 of his things. The result was that it took an extra week, making a 40-mile trip each day, to collect the rest of his things. We had to make one trip back to my place with some hurriedly emptied boxes – mostly for cleaning supplies!

I made a goal to pack a box a day for the 4-5 weeks before the move, then set aside the day before to finish. He wasn’t quite so organized, and went out of town the day before. The result, again, was that I was 95% done and he was less than half done. I started with the fragile items, while he saved them for last, adding to the problem of estimating how long packing would take.

I started labeling all my boxes with a piece of paper with the room they belonged to and a rough list of the contents. Somehow the box with the silverware and the kitchen utensils missed getting a label, and it took me three days to track it down, but otherwise that worked well.

What didn’t go well on my end was the final cleaning. I put off cleaning the oven until the day I was supposed to return my keys. We were also supposed to wash the windows inside and out, but I hadn’t read the note thoroughly enough and missed that until the last minute. If I had it to do over again, I would have scheduled out the big cleaning chores, and maybe just planned to eat microwaved food for the week before the move so I could have done the oven the previous weekend.

To sum up, I am mostly organized and my honey isn’t. There turned out to be a vast difference between my move (couple of “whoopses”) and his move (total disaster). The moral is, buy twice as much tape as you think you’ll need, anywhere from 10% to 100% more boxes than you think you’ll need, and no matter how well organized you think you are being, there is pretty much no way to overdo the planning and preparation.