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What can you do with moving waste after your move?
We hate waste! It’s something that we think makes us a better moving company. We don’t waste your time, we don’t waste your money, we don’t waste your moving supplies.
But inevitably, moving creates trash. If you move a 4-bedroom house once every ten years, you’re going to have a lot of moving boxes and moving supplies left over afterwards that are just not very useful. So, what can you do with them? Here are some more moving tips – we’ve seen some pretty great ideas over the years, these are some of our favorites…
Cardboard furniture:
Wondering what to do with your moving boxes? If you have the double-layer corrugated boxes that are stronger and that you may have used for moving heavier items, and you have a flair for design (and a whole lot of creativity), one of the best ways to get rid of moving waste is turning moving boxes into cardboard furniture. Here are some of our favorites:
Cardboard Gardens:
If your new house includes a garden, you can use moving boxes as mulch for your plants. The boxes make a barrier against new weeds coming up, and with enough water and soil they decompose over time and add fertility to your garden. Just be sure to take off any tape and glue before you plant them, you don’t want that stuff in your soil:
Bubble Wrap Painting:
Moving waste can be more than just moving boxes – there is always the beloved bubble wrap. We confess, when we have a pile of bubble wrap lying around, we’re more likely to spend hours popping it than to turn it into bubble wrap art. But that’s a shame really, because there are some amazing works of moving waste art out there made with bubble wrap. Check out this painting / mosaic made by injecting acrylic paint into each bubble of the bubble wrap with a syringe:
Bubble Wrap Dishes:
We’d give it about five minutes into the meal before our wine is dripping all over the table because we couldn’t stop popping our glass…
Recycling and selling old moving supplies:
And if you don’t have a garden and you don’t have tons of time on your hands, and you’re not a creative type, you can always just recycle or re-sell your old moving supplies. Boxcycle is a company that connects people selling boxes to people buying boxes. And with a quick Google search with the name of your new county and the words “recycle cardboard” you’ll come up with the local recycling guidelines and regulations.
Having the right moving supplies is what makes for a safe, successful move. Disposing of them the right way afterwards is the best way to keep your home orderly, to take care of the planet, and sometimes even to create something beautiful!
The theme for this #Movingfail Moving Mistakes post is: Keep it in the truck.
We know it can be hard to pack things just right; we understand better than most people the temptation to just squeeze a little bit more in when your spouse assures you you can’t fit anything else; we also love the idea of saving a trip by taking as much as possible this time… But your washer and dryer don’t belong balanced on the top of your trunk, you shouldn’t have a friend hiding in your trunk and holding onto your refrigerator with his hands; a couple bits of string aren’t going to keep that armoire attached to your car…. Please, these are some of the worst moving mistakes… Just keep it in the truck!
Sometimes the last step of a move is the most forgotten one: How to get settled in after moving?
The Bookstore Movers van pulls away, and you turn around to a house full of boxes and furniture, you’re tired, you’re probably a bit hungry, and you’re generally overwhelmed. Your new life in your new house has just begun, the culmination of what can be years of searching in some cases. So, what do you do next?
Here are our latest moving tips, designed to help guide you through this last step of the moving process.
Unpacking:
• Unpack the music first – an ipod with speakers, a laptop, a massive stereo, whatever your fancy, a little music makes whole process easier and makes an otherwise empty house feel like home…
• Clean – We know, we know, it’s the last thing you want to do, and hopefully your house was cleaned before you moved in, but still just passing through a room with a broom or a vacuum before you start opening moving boxes might be a good idea. It will prolong the time before you next have to clean, and will give the whole place an even fresher feeling when it’s all set up.
• Start with the … – The bedroom? The kitchen? The kids’ rooms? This is all a personal preference, what really matters though is to start with unpacking a whole room and work from there rather than just opening moving boxes hither and thither. Starting with one whole room will give you a beach head on the whole process, a place you can retreat to to relax when you need a break. If it’s late when you start, the bedroom might be the best bet; if you’re hungry, maybe the kitchen or dining room; if you have kids or pets, getting them set up first might save you some stress later. Whatever the solution that works for you is, just keep it organized.
• Organize your trash – depending on where you live, a lot of moving supplies can be recycled. No matter where you live, lots of moving supplies are re-usable. Come up with a plan before you start unpacking so you know what you’ll be doing with the moving boxes and bubble wrap that are about to start piling up.
Settling In:
• Introduce yourselves to your neighbors – Knowing your neighbors can really change your impression of an area and your experience living there. When you’ve just moved in is the best time to swing by and say hello, you can ask them little questions about things like trash pickup and already feel settled in you new community.
• Check out a local newspaper – or website or coffee shop bulletin board, whatever there is local to your town or neighborhood that will give you a sense of what is going on there and what you can get involved in.
• Go for a walk – This can even be a great way to take a break from packing, just go outside to get some fresh air. Walking around your new neighborhood now that you live there will give you a different perspective on the place, you’ll see your new home in a new light and you’re bound to notice things you hadn’t seen before.
Getting settled in after moving takes time. Over the coming weeks and months you’ll learn more about your surroundings and meet more of your neighbors. Hopefully it will all work out and you’ll never have to move again – but please do remember if you wind up changing houses, you know where the find the best movers in DC!
Moving day is pure excitement, but it can also be pure stress. It’s the culmination of so many events – an apartment or house search, negotiations over a lease and contract; it may even coincide with a marriage or a growing family; it may mark the biggest single purchase you’ll make in your whole life (a new home!). The day itself can feel like it’s bringing all these things together, but if you follow our moving tips, moving day can be stress-free.
Here are our moving day tips:
• Charge your cell phone. Everything will be more stressful if you’re running around looking for plugs and counting the bars your battery has left.
• Be there when we are. We take arrival times seriously, so when we tell you what time we’ll show up at your place, we mean it. If you’re not there though, and we wind up sitting on the sidewalk waiting for you to come back from somewhere, it doesn’t suit anybody’s schedule. Beginning the day right means everything will go well.
• Don’t be afraid to let the movers do the work. When we leave, we go home and get to rest, and that’s when your work begins. Unpacking, obsessing over whether the carpet ties the room together or not, it’s tiring stuff, so save your energy. Let us move the boxes and set things up for you.
• Pack a moving day box. Keep your essentials handy in a separate moving box, including ID, your new lease, keys, medications, toiletries, extra eyeglasses, your cell phone charger, and a sandwich or two for snacks during the day and at night. There is nothing worse than rummaging through moving boxes looking for your keys when you arrive at your new place. Trust us!
• Give the old place a final walk through. It can seem hectic when it’s moving day and we’re there packing things up and you’re wondering how we’re going to get to your new place, but it is worth it to walk through your old place one last time before you leave. You’ll often find you’ve forgotten something, and if you’re attached to your old home it can even be a nice way to say goodbye.
• Food! Everything is more stressful when you’re hungry, so either make sure that moving day box has some snacks in it, or pick out a place near your new apartment where you’ll be able to get a quick bite if you’re feeling low on energy.
• Hire a babysitter. The same might do for pets. If you have small kids, this is a great day to find someone else to take care of them. Don’t get us wrong – we love kids, but moving is stressful for them too. Knowing that they’re being taken care of will let you focus more on the move, and it can help keep things simple and complication-free. And hey, won’t it be cool when your kids come to the new house and find take-out pizza in the kitchen and all their stuff waiting for them in their new room?
We live for moving day – it’s our job. We promise that we’ll be there and we’ll do our best work for you. If you are prepared and ready, then it’s all going to go perfectly, we’re sure of it.
These are our ideas – let us know if you have your own thoughts on what makes for a successful move.
A successful move isn’t just a question of hiring the right moving company – it’s also about planning ahead. Below are some tips on how to prepare your move. Over the coming weeks we’ll add a few more posts on other moving tips, including how to prepare for moving day and how to get settled once the moving trucks pull away.
For starters though, here are some moving tips on how to plan a successful move:
• Assess your budget. Be realistic about what you can afford, but don’t try to cut too many corners. It can be better and safer to do a move yourself then to sign up for some too-good-to-be-true offer you find online and that’s likely to turn into a moving scam or to cost much more than you expected. Most importantly though, incorporate moving expenses into the estimated cost of your new house or apartment so that you’re not left with a nasty surprise on closing day when you realize your bank account is empty and so is your new house…
• Load up on boxes, tape, and moving supplies before moving day so you don’t find yourself stuck at the last minute. You really can’t get too much, when it comes to moving supplies, and you’ll probably need twice as much as you think. As a general (and very imprecise) guideline – for a sparsely furnished 3-bedroom house, 100 boxes ought to do it. If you’ve got a lot of heavy items like books, think more boxes. Better to have lots of small heavy boxes than a few enormous and immovable ones. Craigslist can be a great source for cheap boxes and moving supplies. Home Depot is another good bet.
• Simplify! The less stuff you have on moving day, the easier the move, so take this as an opportunity to simplify your life. Do you need as much furniture in your new place? Would you be better off without 7,000 pairs of shoes? If you never use that set of weights, is it worth lugging them across town? Locate your nearest Good Will or Salvation Army and find out if they’re interested in any of the things you’re getting rid of and your moving day can even do good in the community. (And your movers will thank you!)
• Eat eat eat! There is no need to move half-filled boxes of pasta, single-serving soy sauce packets from the Chinese takeout place, or any of the other random bits of food that might be hanging out in your kitchen. If you start eating through your stocks before moving day, you’ll save yourself some hassle and you’ll have a cleaner kitchen when you unpack.
• Forward your mail. Either go to the post office or just arrange with whoever will be replacing you. Even if you think you’ve called everyone to let them know your new address, there will inevitably be someone who slips through the cracks – knowing your mail is following you is really reassuring.
• Reserve elevators and loading docks. Take care of this as early as possible, especially if you’re moving during the summer or near the beginning or end of any month, those are peak times and service elevators can get busy.
• Start early – Even if you’re hiring movers to pack for you, it’s good to prepare things in advance. When you wake up the day before moving day, if nothing has been packed up or even prepared, the move will be much more stressful than if you’ve at least looked through your things and figured out what needs to be sent where.
Moving can be stressful, but with the right moving company and the right preparation, it can come off without a hitch. Oh, and if you think of any other preparation tips we haven’t included, let us know and we’ll add them on.
Two Saturdays ago I stopped by Capitol Hill Books for a beer tasting and general camaraderie with the Bookstore Movers staff and the public. It’s often good for a man of my, well, “headiness”, to get out of the house every once in a while, and there’s only so much writing and music-making a man can do before he slips into the abyss of his soul. A little company, a little literature, and most importantly, a little libation can do the writer’s soul well. So, I decided to join the literati of the city at the premier beer-tasting event of that particular Saturday.
While I was there, sipping on a deliciously potent brew – an eerie chocolaty and hoppy concoction – and perusing the local book selection, I overheard a few different conversations about the same thing: bookstores.
Most people were talking about how unique Capitol Hill was. Referencing its selection, the sort of no-nonsense but extremely playful attitude of the staff, the seemingly endless supply of books on the second floor, and the laid-back atmosphere of the store itself. All of these things were said with a smile, and by regulars who threw around the names of people I have yet to meet. These conversations were airy and light, but they always led to a particular point; the difference between independent bookstores and big chain ones.
Most of the time it starts when they see the bottle of tequila in an unused sink in the poetry room.
“You won’t see that at a Barnes and Nobles!” someone will say with mock seriousness, then immediately laugh afterwards, thanking the gods of writing that places like Capitol Hill still exist.
But, what they often don’t say is that one won’t find many Barnes and Nobles anymore. Indeed, one will mostly find giant empty warehouses with large B&N logos on the windows in lieu of customers, books, and culture. The bookstore culture is dying, has been dying, and will continue to die if the trends don’t change. Most people do not lament the loss of giant corporate bookstores, but in a way, they should – especially if they are the same people who continually buy books off Amazon and merely window shop at their local stores while saying how cute it is.
It certainly takes a bit of convincing to get people to pay eight dollars for a book when they can get it for ninety-nine cents on Amazon – but in lieu of a long tirade for the literacy of America, I would like to put forward a couple of quiet arguments
Remember, when we buy books, we pay for the ideas of other human beings. Even a horrible, dramatic, ridiculous novel that has laughable writing still took a person years or months of labor – charging five bucks for a year’s worth of labor is not a far-fetched idea when you think about it – no matter how cheesy the dialogue may be.
We pay for the ability to discuss books with other book lovers, face to face, and the “extra” money you are spending is going to keep a roof over our heads while we do so. Supporting a local bookstore instead of Amazon and spending the extra little cash goes to keep establishments around, and establishments are far more than stores – they are part of our neighborhoods, part of our lives, and give us places to be ourselves around other like-minded people.
We are also paying for the ideals of bookstores as well. We are paying to value literature, to value reading and individual thought, personal relationships and the ability to be honest.
We do not just support businesses by purchasing books from establishments rather than places. We support the arts, and in a way, our souls, by surrounding ourselves with the culture of the good and the noble. We help bolster our communities and thus, ourselves. So, next time, when you’re wavering on buying a novel from a tiny little bookstore because it’s three dollars cheaper on Amazon – think of where your money is going, who it’s going to, and what it will create. Something tells me you’ll be willing to spend a little extra.
As most of you may have noticed, I am incredibly new to the Bookstore Movers universe. As far as I know, most of my co-workers are collections of ideas and atoms that exist in some sort of state far away from my tiny little home office. I hope to change that soon, and the company itself has been nothing short of accommodating, open, and just all around friendly to a new, nerdy writer like me. So, even without faces to the names, or deeds to the ideals, I still feel quite comfortable around the movers, the administration, and the people with whom I work.
And I realized after going on Yelp after I was hired that I wasn’t alone.
I would like to invite those of you who have the chance to read the blog to also read the first page on Yelp about us. A quick glance will tell you that Bookstore Movers has an impeccable record, and an overwhelming amount of positive reviews.
Sure, this sounds like bragging, or the world’s least subtle advertisement, but I wanted to bring it up because I think there’s an incredibly important detail in the majority of the reviews; the fact that the reviewer mentioned the names of the movers. There is something incredibly intimate about knowing the names of those who are working for you – it strips away the barrier of worker/master mentality and creates a space that, when done honestly, allows both parties to function as one harmonious and symbiotic unit. This was largely evident in the reviews I came across, as each one contained a “Chris”, “Pete”, “Craig”, “Benny” or “Rashim” – filled to the brim with proper nouns!
What an incredibly interesting feat – even for a local company, and rarer for a company where most encounters are only for a short time and one-time.
I didn’t write this post to brag about the company or to pull a certain sense of empathy and understanding from my readers – rather, I wrote it to show that there really is heart in what Bookstore Movers does. Whether it’s volunteering, throwing social events, or most importantly, moving someone, Bookstore Movers has an incredible sense of duty and pride. I say this as a relatively new employee, and more importantly, as someone who has yet to belong to the BSM family.
In a way, I suppose this little blurb ceases to be about Bookstore Movers’ ratings, or even moving – it’s about the value of working hard and letting your work define you.
No matter what the service is; from moving, to serving you coffee or food, to creating murals or constructing buildings – the true value is not in the speed, the price, or the method. The true value is how seriously those who work take their work, how much pride they have in it, and how much they truly love their work. If they take their work seriously, they take themselves seriously, and their work will reflect that. The artistry, mastery, and efficiency that makes one perform excellently will come naturally.
So, when you are looking for a craftsman, a service, or a company, find out how many people remember the names, the faces, and the attitudes that accompanied the work – if they do so in a positive light – then you have found those who wear their heart on their sleeve; and it’s these types of people that we should be happy to support.
You’ve definitely seen them: the high-rise buildings, towering over every other concrete structure in the vicinity. They are dozens of stories, with pools on the roofs and entire walls made of glass. The buildings themselves look like the love-child of a quirky Project Runway designer and the cold, calculating hands of a Swedish architect. Dozens of apartments are packed into each floor and in spite of the number, there’s inexplicably one, maybe two elevators. And, without any surprise, there’s only one service elevator that somehow, in spite of the definitive modernity of the building, looks like it was stolen from a Saw movie set. Well, I may be projecting a bit of my own apartment experience for the last part, but you get the point.
Yes, nothing is more annoying to a group of movers and the residents moving in than a slow, singular and small cargo elevator – conveniently located approximately ten miles (or seems to be while carrying a bed, cabinet, stereo system, other heavy things) from your apartment on the floor. It lends itself to cramp corridors, tight fits and most of all, tons of sweaty dudes in an elevator at one point.
But, alas, what can be done? I mean, it’s not like we have giant robots that can pick up the heaviest of furniture and gently place it down through your open window or balcony. We do not have jetpacks that allow our movers to leap up boundless stories to safely deliver your pets, utensils, glassware, or whatever other valuables you hold dear directly to your doorstep. We don’t even have a really sweet truck that can attach the side of the building and then take our mov—
Oh, what’s that? People do have that?
Well, I sit corrected.
Some places do have some pretty amazing technology to bypass the horrid inconveniences of small elevators and long hauls (and halls) and there’s a whole lot else out there that is exciting for movers and those moving to see, but until we get our own sweet elevator truck we’ll have to stick to our normal trucks, stairs, elevators, and hallways. Plus, it’s not like our movers don’t enjoy the exercise, and in spite of how cool an elevator on a truck is….it’s still not a giant robot or a jetpack.
So, you’ve decided on a new place, the wonders and excitement of the world are placed at your feet and you couldn’t be more excited at the prospects ahead of you. Yes, indeed, you have found more than a new house, you’ve found a new home and new opportunities. Alas, thinking of your future and the brave new world you will dive into has prevented a crucial part of your move: packing.
Oh, heavy is the head that wears this crown, but have no fear of being thought of as rude, inconsiderate or thoughtless. Instead, calmly organize what you have, and think of one simple mantra:
While the luxuries of the Eastern movers don’t entirely translate over here (we are severely lacking in elevator trucks and mobile platforms) – there is nevertheless something special to take away from watching this video – trust and confidence in your movers and their abilities to work effectively and with a sense of purpose.
When purchasing something, you as the customer should always be assured of the quality of the product and have no doubts to its effectiveness. Choosing a moving company should be no different, you, after all, trust your life to the men and women who will be completing your move. Sure, it’s not surgery and you’re not under fire, but the movers still hold your life in their hands; in the forms of furniture, electronics, precious items, memories and everyday objects that make you who you are.
When you think about it that way, you can never really be too choosy when choosing people to handle them.
Our movers are carefully trained and expected to perform in a professional, open, honest and dedicated manner, and they take pride in being known for doing so. While we may not be able to offer padding for all of your walls, specialty trucks and lifts, and a sock change upon arrival to your new home, we can guarantee that our movers can be trusted to treat your items and the life they represent with all the reverence they would treat their own possessions.
So, if you find yourself swept up in the romanticism of finding a new life somewhere, or you aren’t sure of how to deal with certain items, or if you just doubt your own abilities to effectively pack, structure and organize, remember who to trust. Remember simply to
“Leave it all to the Movers”.
Lots of moving mistakes come from moving trucks. We see and hear about a lot about these moments when the cheap do-it-yourself move goes wrong. What started off as cheap and easy can quickly become expensive and endless. Moving yourself is taking a chance – you don’t know the equipment, you’ve maybe never even driven a truck before. A friend of ours once drove a Uhaul onto the Brooklyn Bridge – only to be stopped by NYPD (no trucks on the Brooklyn Bridge!) and forced to back down the on-ramp. It makes for a good story – but there’ve got to be other ways to get good stories…
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