Packing Tips

When you are moving into a new home or office, you will have to pack all of your belongings away. This is a long and strenuous task, and not one most people enjoy. That being the case, Pack And Stack want to make your big move as easy as possible with our durable storage boxes in Hamilton. We like to think outside the box and give you useful tips on getting the most out of them.

When you’re packing boxes, pack the small items in the large boxes and the large items in the small boxes. It’s a matter of physics. Heavy items are likely to come crashing through the middle of a large box. While this makes sense for most things, books are an exception. If you fill a big box with a bunch of small books, the weight is going to add up and it is going to be too heavy to carry. Also, pack heavier items at the bottom and lighter items toward the top. And remember: If you’re straining to pick up a box, it probably contains too many heavy items, and it could wind up breaking.

Don’t wait until the week before you move out of your Hamilton home to start packing your things. If you’re like most people, then there are some items you can pack even a couple of months before a move and not miss them. For example, pack up out-of-season clothes, holiday wares, your good china, stemware, and books you’ve already read and don’t plan opening again in the next two months. It might be annoying to have a pile of storage boxes in your house for eight weeks, but it will relieve a lot of stress during those last couple of weeks before the move. If this is not suitable for your situation, our company can offer you to use one of our self-storage units to place your belongings away where it will not be in your way.

Furniture casters are likely to separate from furniture during the move. So just go ahead and remove them before transport. You can tie them together with heavy twine and tag them with the name of the furniture piece they belong to. The same thing goes for framed pictures and mirrors. Some framed items come with special screws and hanging devices that you don’t want to get lost in the shuffle during the move. Save those devices in a plastic bag and either tape the bag to the mirror or frame or store the bag separately with tags that indicate which hanging devices go with which frame.

If you don’t label your boxes to indicate what’s inside, then when you arrive at your new Hamilton home, you and your movers will have no idea where each box goes. Imagine how tedious it will be to go through every single one, trying to figure out what’s inside and which room to place it in. So, be smart and label each box. You can label it by the room and with a general description of the contents it contains. If you include the room, then the movers will know where it goes. If you just label it by the contents, then only you will know where it goes. The label should be on the sides of the storage box, not on the top of it.

Here’s a cool trick: When you tape a box closed, put string underneath the tape and leave a bit of the string hanging out. When you arrive at your new place and you want to unload its contents, you simply yank the string and it will rip through the tape — and voila, it will open. It’s a little bit more time consuming on the front end to cut the string and tape it on, but it will save you time on the back end. You won’t need to get out your keys or a box cutter to slice through the tape. You can just pull on the little string.

You may think that the most logical way to pack your plates is to place them bottoms-down into the box. But actually, plates are less likely to break if they’re standing on the edge inside. Of course, you also need to wrap each plate in newspaper and include plenty of stuffing on the bottoms, sides and in the corners. Put so much stuffing inside so that the plates don’t have any room to shift around at all. Generally speaking, when you’re packing glass items, you should pack the largest glass items on the bottom of the box and the smaller, more delicate glass items on the top. Movers aren’t always delicate with your packed goods and if they plop one down on the floor or the ground, the glass is going to take a beating, so those items should be stronger.
If you’re using professional movers to transport your belongings across Hamilton, consider having them pack your fragile items. Companies are usually only liable for the things they pack themselves. So if they pack it, you’re essentially insuring it.

If you want to save storage boxes and the trouble of moving items from a drawer to a box, then simply take the drawers out of chests and desks. As long as the drawers are full and don’t contain anything breakable, you can stretch tape across the top of the drawer to hold the components in place. Be sure to use masking tape — it won’t take the paint off of the furniture. That said, don’t leave the masking tape on the furniture for too long. Take it off as soon as you move the drawers into your new home in Hamilton.

Pack similar items together. For example, if you’re packing up the contents of your medicine cabinet, don’t add kitchen utensils to the box. That will confuse matters when you’re unpacking. Instead, add more bathroom items inside. And while we’re talking bathroom items, washcloths and towels make excellent stuffing. They can be used to prevent items from moving around inside a box. It’s best that they are filled to the brim to keep them from collapsing. After you’ve filled a storage box, label it with your name, what it contains and an arrow indicating which side is up. And of course, if it’s fragile, write that down as well.

For a super secure storage box, you should tape the seam on the bottom, and you should run a piece of tape perpendicular to that seam. Pad the bottom of the box with newspaper and stuff the sides with extra paper to really make the bottom solid. Depending on what you’re packing, you should wrap each item with paper. When you’ve filled the box to capacity, tape it shut and label it with its contents and your name. And be sure that you label the sides of the box, not the top of it.