Moving Soon? Tips to Pack Up Your Garage
The garage can be a difficult room to pack because it’s full of items that are dirty, oily,and bulky. The garage is also a place where many people store items they no longer need and have not yet thrown away. Many homeowners dread packing their own garage. These tips can help you get through the garage-packing process. Here’s what you need to know.
Decide What Is and Isn’t Needed
The garage is a place where people store items like seasonal clothes, sentimental items, and holiday decorations. Often, these items can build up and become forgotten. Before you can pack your garage, you must first decide what you should and should not keep.
Give yourself as much time as possible to sort through the items in your garage. If you plan to sell things in a garage sale, begin a few months in advance. If you plan to donate or throwaway your unneeded items, a few weeks may be enough time.
Sort through your garage box by box. A good rule of thumb is to get rid of everything you haven’t used in a year or two years. If you need to unload some sentimental items and you’re reluctant to throw them away, give them away to family members or friends who will also find meaning in those items.
Label All Boxes Appropriately
Label all boxes on all four sides to ensure that you know where garage items belong in your new home. To make labeling easier, stick the outside of each box with a color-coded sticker that shows it goes in the garage. This will prevent you from having to write garage repeatedly while packing.
Give Away Chemicals
The garage is a place that tends to be full of open bottles, toxic chemicals, and substances like car oil. Most moving companies will not allow these items to go in their moving truck. Find out what your mover allows and doesn’t allow, and then get rid of those items that you can’t bring with you. Getting rid of toxic chemicals can be tricky.
Give Them Away
For many people, the easiest way to dispose of unwanted chemicals is to give them away to someone who will use them. Find out if your neighbor scan use your open bottles of antifreeze, bleach, and other chemicals. If you have items your neighbors and friends aren’t interested in, local charities in your area could use them instead.
Contact Your Sanitation Department
In most areas, you can’t throwaway toxic chemicals. Talk to your Sanitation Department to find out what they recommend that you do with your garage chemicals. Many communities have a waste recycling program that where you can drop these chemicals off for safe disposal.
Don’t put anything down the drain, into your septic tank or sewer, or into your trash can without getting approval from your sanitation department first.
If you move across town, you may be able to transport these items to your new garage in the back of your car. Don’t leave them in a hot parked car for long.
Take Apart Large Items
The garage is full of bulky items like bicycles and patio gliders. These item scan be hard to transport. Take them apart to make transportation easier. Put all screws and other small pieces in a baggie, and secure that baggie to one of the parts. Use stretch wrap to secure all pieces to each other.
Reassembly will be easier if you can remember how you took it apart. Make a video of yourself disassembling each item so you can watch these videos before trying to put each item back together.
Bundle Large Tools
Large tools like brooms and rakes usually won’t fit in a box. Bundle your large tools together with stretch wrap. This will prevent the tools from rolling around in the moving truck.
Clean Lawn Care Items
Tools like trimmers and edgers tend to have shreds of grass and dirt, which can get the inside of your moving truck (and everything nearby) dirty. Clean your lawn care items with a rag to get rid of the loose dirt. For dirty items that you can’t clean very well, wrap the min trash bags to contain the dirt.
Know Your Mover’s Policies
Your mover might have policies that would prevent you from putting some lawn care tools, like a mower or riding lawnmower, into the moving truck. At the very least, your mover might require you to drain the oil and remove attachments. Talk to your mover to find out what can and can’t go into the moving truck.
If you want to move in the Chicago area,and you have more questions about howto move your garage, talk to a representative from Affordable Moving Co. We’ll be happy to answer your questions and help you get through your upcoming relocation.