Furniture cut-outs for visualizing

Lay-It-Out

Last time I moved I threw out my back repositioning Grandma’s china cabinet for the 10th time. My latest (and hopefully last) moving experience was a dream because of the Lay-It-Out furniture templates. These unique life-sized paper furniture templates are the shape of your bed, sofa, tables, chairs, rugs, billiard table. After trimming them to the appropriate size (measurements are in inches and centimeters), we placed them on the floor and — as I was directed to the appropriate location — continued moving them around with no effort. I had the whole house planned out before the moving truck arrived and it cost less than the physical therapy and pain killers I had to use before. They are a breeze to use. Measure, trim, position, then reposition and reposition and reposition again… You could buy a roll of something like cheap brown crate paper of course, but I liked that Lay-it-out was ready to go, sizes already measured, and in pretty colors. You can buy a “Total Home Package” or purchase smaller packages specific to the Living Room, Dining Room, Bedroom, Game room, Accessory Tables or Rugs packages. I purchased the whole house package and used most of the pieces, except the billiard table, which I kept pinned to the wall for two weeks as a piece of pop art. — Rick Sievering

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Recycled moving boxes

U-Haul Box Exchange

I have mixed feelings about U-Haul and their prices, but one thing they have done that is priceless is create and maintain a surprisingly helpful Box Exchange forum. It’s a standard web forum divided into geographical areas so people can request free used boxes or make theirs available for free or cheap. We just saved ourselves $250. After responding to two posts, we had something lined up in no time. We drove into the city (Manhattan) the next day from where we live in Jersey City and picked up a bunch of boxes in various sizes that were practically brand new — all for free. I basically ignored the “buy” forum as the “free” one was successful in under 24 hrs. We first tried Craigslist, but found that most people in our area at the time wanted money for boxes. From our experience, people on the U-Haul forum seemed willing to go a little out of their way to get rid of their boxes. Most of the posts are definitely from individuals, but interestingly, there were a couple of business disposing of boxes (we got ours from an electronics importer in Chinatown). We have not yet completed our big move to Wisconsin, but will be giving away our boxes the same way when we do. — Guil Barros

Keeps your carpet clean

Carpet Film

Ever wanted to have friends over for a party at your house? Ever wanted to have a LOT of friends over for a party? Worried about spilled drinks staining your carpet? One solution is to cover it before the party with carpet film.

What is it? Picture a roll of Saran Wrap. Now imagine it thicker and more durable. Now imagine one side sticky. Voila! Carpet film.

I don’t cover every carpet, just the most highly trafficked areas where people will be drinking and spilling: outside the bathroom where there’s usually a line, up the stairs, by the entrance, in the coat room, and in the people-watching areas.

When the party’s over, it pulls up easily. Best of all, all of the traffic on the carpet film will have pushed the adhesive side down into the carpet’s nooks and crannies. When you pull the film, dirt will come out too. Free carpet cleaning!

Several companies make carpet film. You can get it at Home Depot, Lowes and Amazon for $10-20 per 2’x50′ roll. Wider widths and longer length rolls are also available. Make sure to buy it reverse wound (with the sticky side on the outside of the roll) to make the application process easier. — Joshua Keroes

Clearest box labeling

Smart Move Tape

Two things smoothed out my family’s move a few years ago: designating Open First boxes for each room in our new home, so that on the first night after the move we wouldn’t be missing any essentials; and this Smart Move Tape.

The clearly marked and color-coded designations (Office, Bedroom, Bedroom #2, Kitchen, Storage, etc.) made unloading go quickly for our movers, and organizing our many cardboard moving boxes much easier for us later on. No doubt we could have accomplished something similar with a handful of colored Sharpies, but it would have taken a lot of consistently careful writing to even approach the same effect — at a time when we were looking to make less work, not more — and the colored tapes really help make sorting a breeze. —Elon Schoenholz

Relocation advice

Moving Tips

Since I seem to move house every six months or so, I have ample opportunities to test new strategies. This time around I experimented by putting plastic storage totes through FedEx Ground, and for the items I moved myself I used cardboard boxes with the addition of nonadhesive strapping tape and tubular handles. Much quicker and easier, less effort, no breakages, big success. — Charles Platt

Plastic Totes via FedEx

Wal-Mart sells them for storing items such as bedding and clothes in the home, but their semi-rigid construction makes them ideal for moving fragile possessions such as dishes and stereo components. They are stackable, waterproof, easy to pick up (recessed handle at each end), reusable (can be nested during storage), and will pass unscathed through FedEx ground. Best of all they barely cost more than cardboard boxes! My local FedEx-Kinko’s was skeptical about accepting them for fear that the lids would pop off during transport. I allayed their fears by putting 2-inch tape around the perimeter of the lid and folding it under the rim. I had to make little notches in the tape so that it would seal properly either side of plastic strengthening ribs under the rim, but this was still much easier, quicker, and safer than using cardboard. Wal-Mart sells gray Sterilite brand totes (the type I prefer) through its stores, but not online. Models 1830 and 1835 are the ones I have tested through FedEx without any problems. You can pay a little more and get “latch totes” (models 1940 and 1945 with a flip-up latch at each end) but since you’ll still need to add tape, I feel the latches are unnecessary. (NOTE: One reader pointed out that plastic totes may buckle if they are stored in a very hot place with heavy objects on top of them. I haven’t encountered this problem myself, but I do follow the standard practice of filling each container to minimize empty space inside it)

Strapping Tape

If you still want to use cardboard boxes for items you move yourself, or if you are moving stacks of books secured with cling wrap (as I have suggested previously), consider adding half-inch nonadhesive plastic strapping tape. This is the stuff you sometimes see wrapped around boxes containing big items such as refrigerators being transported as freight. Often it’s yellow in color. Shipping departments have a tensioner that they use to pull the tape tight, but you don’t need that. You can get 3000 feet of half-inch strapping and a lot of little buckles, with a manual tensioner, for ~$45. You thread the tape through the buckle, pull up on it while bearing down on the box, and you have it as tight as you need it. You trim the tape near the buckle. The advantages are that it greatly strengthens the box while giving you something to grab it by, especially if you augment it with a handle (described below). Also you can link two or three boxes together so that you can carry them easily with one hand, especially up and down stairs. Much more efficient and secure than cradling boxes in your arms, less hazardous (you can see your feet and obstacles in your path), and less risk of back injury, since you don’t have to stoop to pick them up. Note that FedEx and UPS don’t like string or strapping that can snag their package processing machinery, so strapping is for transporting packages yourself or with assistance from movers.

DIY Box Handles

Make handles from half-inch plastic water pipe sawn into 5″ lengths. My local Lowe’s sold me six feet of pipe for around $3 and you can use any wood saw to cut it. You may feel this is a luxury, but if you want to protect your hands from the edges of the plastic tape, handles are nice to have.

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