Preparing for a PCS

Preparing for a move... I've done it several times myself and I've learned a lot from those experiences. No matter what its still a stressful time. But one thing we can do to help the situation is prepare as much as possible on this side so that arriving on the other side is a little bit easier. Take a look at the first picture below. If movers came today, all of this stuff, trash and all, would be boxed up and dumped out in the new house. What a nightmare! The best scenario is to take the time to sort through everything and pack only what you want and need at the new location. It takes a lot of time but its SO worth it!

Craft room situation. Everything you can imagine is on this floor.

You can't see the whole room, but we divided every single item into zones. Now we know what's what.

We have a zone for old wood to recycle, a zone for Sell/Give Away, Keep, Trash, etc. By this point we have already gone through every single item on the floor, so we know exactly what is in each zone. Doing this clears the mind of all the clutter and confusion from the first photo. Everyone will have different categories of zones depending on what they own.

Here's another house with everything that has collected in the basement.

There's no big secret to doing this. I literally just pick up an item and start asking questions. The reason people hire me is:

1) its too overwhelming to do by themselves,

2) they're procrastinating and know if they have an appointment then it WILL get done, and

3) they hope (rightly so) that I'll have some ideas or tricks they hadn't thought of.

We start somewhere and designate zones for this or that, even using signs sometimes so it doesn't get confused. Some homes are large enough that we can designate an entire room for HHG or UAB. That also make it easier on the movers and helps eliminate accidentally putting the wrong thing in the wrong shipment.

The couch is now cleared off and everything has gone to its zone.

The photo below is a small room that got filled with storage stuff. Don't move without first taking a look at what you have! Half of it may be stuff you don't even want. Once again, we pulled out one box at a time and made decisions about which zone to put it in.

Don't get overwhelmed. One thing at a time.

Same room, but empty.

With the empty room, we moved all the For Sale / Give Away stuff in here so it doesn't get mixed up.

Look at how much they're NOT bringing! And this isn't including the trash. And this is just from one floor of the house! Its so worth purging on this side so the only things you have to unpack in the new house are things you know you WANT and NEED.