The following is a guest post from regular contributor, Rachel at Useful Beautiful Home.
Well, it seems this is the moving season. Homes have popped up for sale all around us in the last few weeks. It makes sense to continue marching forward with DIY moving tips for an organized move. Some of you have expressed that moving is on your horizon, so I’m hoping the ideas I present in this mini-series are an easy resource to Pin now and reference later when needed. Today’s topic is about pillows and linens.
I tend to pack one room at a time. In fact, my general style is to pack as much as possible in one room before moving on to the next. It’s the, “finish what you start” concept. So, you can see when it comes to the linen closet, my tendency is to stuff everything neatly into one giant box labeled “linens” and move along to the next space. NOPE, you can do better than that! Put that stack of hand towels to work for you.
Use your linens. Grab them out of the linen closet and from every household hiding spot. Use them to your advantage, especially in the kitchen and with items you want wrapped in extra padding. Table cloths, towels, and bed sheets can provide extra cushion for semi-fragile items that aren’t glass breakables. (*Although, it’s better to use specially designed padding to secure your fragile pieces and special china. For those items, things like bubble wrap and secure boxes are the best choice to keep glass from breaking.)
Towels, sheets, pillowcases, etc. are a perfect substitute for expensive packing paper! Below shows a set of wooden plates I didn’t want scratched up accidentally inside the moving box. Wrapping it in fabric probably protected it better than a thin sheet of packing paper.
I also used pillows as an extra layer of padding at the bottom of some boxes (like you see below).
The point is to get creative when doing a DIY move. If you’re trying to save a little cash in the moving process, it doesn’t hurt to use what you already have around the house. Don’t we do that all the time with organizing and decorating our homes? The same applies for organizing a DIY move from one lovely abode to the next.
So, while we have red boxes for the kitchen and blue boxes for the office, there’s no color for the linen closest because linens can be used not just packed.
One more related tip about pillows… if you have a stack of pillows and/or linens that you’d rather not use as cushioning for fear they would get damaged, then shrink them. I had certain decorative pillows that I wasn’t keen about stuffing between my pots and pans. Yet, standing alone they consumed quite a bit of air space. So, I grabbed a vacuum seal-able bag and shrunk them to one third their original size. Once magically shrunk, they fit easily inside a box and those puffy space hogs took up considerably less room.
Finally, be sure to keep a clean set of bed linens and pillows per bed for the first night in your new abode. In other words, pack the majority of your linens as cushioning and fabric buffers, but keep out the few you will need for the first days and nights. (FYI, more on the unpacking side of the adventure in future posts.)
With all that said, go ahead and get creative; think outside the moving box! 😉
In the professional world, I’m a nurse by trade. But, around our house, I’m known as Mommy to our young daughter. My two worlds collided and began shaping into a blog. Useful Beautiful Home represents the hours I’ve dedicated to managing my household as efficiently as possible. I offer you motivation to keep your home healthy, organized, and welcoming. My goal is to share what I’ve implemented in my home to inspire you with fresh ideas and to encourage you to keep up the good work in yours! Learn more about me HERE or visit me at UsefulBeautifulHome.com.
MelKen says
I used foam plates and empty egg flats as padding, cushioning and separators for my china on my cross-country move, and didn’t lose a single saucer! Think what can be recycled or repurposed… Not only do you save money, but our planet as well!
Becky Lowmaster says
Oh so thankful I am not moving soon. Not moved for 25 yrs. I just purge old stuff. Easier than moving, I think. Good thoughts though.