Month : April 2018

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Packing Wine Glasses & Bottles

Use Cell Boxes

These pre-made boxes are the easiest way to pack crystal glassware and champagne flutes into neatly organized separate pockets. The cardboard between each glass prevents them from bumping against one another, meaning less opportunity for damage. If you can’t find any specifically designed for wine glasses, you can make your own using Styrofoam plates. Just be sure you arrange the glasses in such a way that they don’t shift too much during transit.

Use white tissue papers, not newspapers

The ink from newspapers can easily smear on your glasses, leaving you with a lot of clean up to do when you’d rather just unpack and enjoy a celebratory glass. Instead, re-use or buy a new stack of white tissue paper for the occasion. You don’t need to go crazy with each glass, just one sheet will be enough to protect them from scratches or dings!

If you’re using bubble wrap, use it over the tissue paper

Padding your glasses directly with bubble wrap creates a certain kind of grip between the plastic and crystal, which can mean broken stems or crushed glasses. Don’t ask us about the science — we just know what happens. Use a layer of tissue paper between the bubble wrap and glassware, and your goblets will be protected.

Pad the empty space

Even a few poorly located potholes can mean your boxes get bumped around more than you’d like. Be sure to pad any extra space with excess tissue paper, blankets, sweatshirts, or even socks to prevent your glasses from shifting in transit. There should be no space for excess shaking once you close up each box.

Label, and label well

Be sure that every side of your box is labeled as fragile, and if you’ve packed things with one side intended to be facing up, label that well, too. Your movers can’t be expected to check all sides of every box to be sure they’re moving things with the proper care and attention, and boxes of wine glasses tend to be light — so they can easily get tossed on top of a pile if not properly marked. Why should you use detailed and custom moving labels? We explain in this blog post.

Wine shipping containers are the best

Transporting wine bottles requires that you have a certain awareness of how each bottle needs to be treated. Most of the time they should be transported at a certain temperature, and without too much shaking — a feat that can be difficult to achieve in a traditional moving truck scenario. Wine shipping containers are truly the best way to safely move your collection without disturbing the quality of each wine, but in case you don’t have the opportunity to use them, cell boxes or even wine boxes from the liquor store can be an acceptable alternative. If you decide to use a luxury moving company, they will be able to assist you in packing your collection carefully and well.

Know how your wines like to be treated

If you’ve taken the care to curate a collection of fine wines, you know that each varietal likes to be handled in a specific way to preserve its character. That means your packing endeavors need to go beyond how to safely move wine bottles, and address some specifics. Some wines will need to be transported upside down, while some are ok being wedged into a cell box. Be sure you know which bottles need to be treated how, and label the boxes appropriately if they need to stay oriented in a specific way.

Give your wine time to settle

Most wines, especially reds, will need time to settle after being moved. Sommeliers call this “bottle shock” — when the flavor of the wine goes off because the acidity and alcohol are disturbed by being shaken or exposed to varying temperatures. So if you want to be sure you’re getting the best side of your fine wines, let them sit for at least a week after you move before opening them.

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Average Move Times

HOW TO DETERMINE THE TIME YOUR MOVE WILL TAKE?

Wish you could look into a crystal ball and find out exactly how long your move will take? Constructing a ballpark estimate for your moving timeline may be more doable than you think — no magic tricks necessary!

These moving considerations can help you come up with a pretty solid idea of the time involved in your move. Keep the following factors in mind.

How long?

While the actual amount of time it takes to move can vary greatly from move to move, professional movers provide these general timelines based on the size of an apartment:

Studio or one-bedroom moves take about 2-3 hours.

Two-bedroom moves take about 3-5 hours.

Three to four-bedroom moves take up to 7 hours.

Five or more bedroom moves can take 8 to 10 hours.

Keep in mind that these figures are general timeframes that moving companies use in order to estimate the amount of manpower and time required for a move so that they can make reasonably accurate moving rate quotes.

Moving considerations

There are other factors involved in a move, however, that may speed up or slow down the process. Here are a few other moving considerations besides apartment size to keep in mind. The time of your move will be affected by factors such as:

The number of boxes you have

The amount of furniture you own (and how much assembly/disassembly is required)

Moving truck accessibility (how far your movers have to walk in order to load and unload the truck)

Weather conditions

Any loose, unpacked items to move

The number of fragile items you move (artwork, electronics, collections, etc.)

The flights of stairs you’ll have to navigate, and/or your access to a moving elevator

The number of long hallways or walkways to travel over

The number of people helping you move

The distance between your old apartment and your new one — and traffic or weather conditions on roads in between

All of these factors come into play when you think about how to determine the time your move can take.

The bottom line: it’s best not to try to rush a move. Always plan for things to take a bit longer than you imagined they would.

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Pre Packing Tips

Get rid of everything

Okay, maybe not everything, but the more unused and unnecessary items you eliminate from your home, the less stuff you’ll have to pack up, haul across town, unload, and organize.

Certified professional organizer Ellen Delap recommends clearing any clutter from your home as soon as you know you’ll be moving.

Be ruthless with your stuff. That coat you think is cute but haven’t worn in four months? Donate it.

The very first coffee maker you ever bought that flavors your morning brew with little pieces of rust? Trash it.

Doing a massive preliminary purge will have the single biggest impact on the efficiency and ease of your entire packing process.

Sort things by category

Organize your belongings by category, not by room.

Instead of spending a day cleaning out your entire bedroom, spend an afternoon sorting through every article of clothing you own.

Scour every coat closet, dirty clothes hamper, and laundry room until you’ve got all your clothes in one place. Then sort.

Do the same thing for books, shoes, important papers, and the like.

Schedule a free donation pickup

Save yourself a trip to your local Goodwill and schedule a pickup. In addition to picking up and storing practically anything (including furniture), we’ll also pick up your donation and drop it off to Goodwill — at no extra charge.

All you have to do is put your giveaway items in boxes and leave them on your doorstep.

The good men and women of Donation Town will then pick up your stuff and deliver it to a local charity of your choice.

Set aside stuff to sell

You probably have a few items you no longer want, but would love to get a little money for. If that’s the case, set these items aside and determine where you can sell them.

If it’s furniture, Craigslist or AptDeco might be your best bet. If it’s brand name clothing, you could try Poshmark or a local consignment store.

For specialty items like a gently used Coach purse or your collection of 90’s Beanie Babies, get on eBay.

Once you have everything sorted, set a date on your calendar to visit the nearest Buffalo Exchange or craft descriptions of the items you plan to sell online.