We moved SO many times as a kid! Now I've lived in the same house since I was married
Here are some tips that we did, to help the organization whenever we moved.
1. Do one entire room at a time: closet, any shelf, bedding, wall decor, curtains, ect.
2. Pack each kid a small suitcase w/ 2-3 days worth of clothes, and couple of toys. Once we even went on a minivacation after we moved, instead of staying the night at our new house. IT was a long move, and my parents needed a day or so to recouperate before tackling the unpacking! Fun for us kids!!! Include a towel or two, toothbrushes, ect. Just like if you were going on vacation. You can live out of this until you get the new place situated.
3. Don't pack *any* food. Use up *all* canned and packaged food, and all the stuff from your fridge (I wouldn't do this if it was a short move, but if you're going 4-6 hours away, you'll have to keep fridge stuff cold, ect., too much trouble). Donate what you can't use up.
4. When you put stuff in the moving van, put it in room by room: LR furniture, boxes of LR stuff, pics, ect., then dining room, kitchen, and each kid's bedroom. Don't make yourself walk around boxes in the LR, for example, you'll be packing it first, and unpacking it last! Start at the front door and make your way back to the farther rooms. You'll unpack in reverse, bedrooms, bath, kitchen, LR. This way you won't be walking around boxes, or having to move a box 5 times. PUt it in the room it goes in, out of the way, and then go to the next room. Make sure and label EVERY box with the room it goes in, and what's inside: Mike's toys from closet- Legos, FP farm set; Bathroom- misc. stuff- meds., extra towels, toothbrush holder.
When you unload, take every box to it's corresponding room. If it goes in the closet, put the box in the closet. bedding goes in a corner until you get the bed up. everything else can be stacked in one place in the room until you can get to it.
We would always just do one room at a time. Usually starting w/ organizng the kitchen. First you have to cleanout all of the cabinets, ect. then decide where to put certain items. When you pack, be sure to pack up the most frequently used items in one box: Pots and pans -everyday (for your skillet, pan, stuff you use everyday) and pots and pans, misc. You can leave the misc. one packed, but still whip up something easy using your everyday box, until you have time to unpack all of your other stuff. We would usually do one entire room before moving on to the next. We also always cleaned the new house before we put our stuff in it, so I'd leave some cleaning supplies near the back of the moving van, easy to get to. Also, we would only unpack the necessary stuff at first, just to get situated.
Good Luck!
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