The organized chaos has begun. I had been decluttering before as part of the spring cleaning previously mentioned. More decluttering will happen as part of the packing process as well. The number one key factor for a smooth move is organization. Two things I consider essential when moving are a Sharpie marker and a camera. In my case I'm using a digital camera. The first question is why a camera?
A camera can save you considerable time and frustration both during and after the move. Before you do any packing take a walk through your house and take pictures of the rooms. You've now created scrapbook moments and memories to be used later. There may be some elements you would like to recreate in your new home. A picture is worth a thousand words in this case. Next and this is important if you are hiring movers, take pictures of what they will be moving. In the event there is any damage during the move you have a pictorial of how that piece of furniture was before they moved it. This is a good idea to do even if you aren't moving for insurance purposes. There is nothing more frustrating than going to set up certain electronic equipment without some type of instructions for the wiring. Even more frustrating is trying to write this out then losing the instructions in the move. We solved that problem by taking pictures of the wiring layout for things like the receiver, VCR and satellite as it does have to be connected in certain layout for our set-up. One inventive use for a digital camera when packing for a move is to take pictures of what is in the box, print them off and tape the picture to the box. Once at your new residence you have a wonderful visual of the contents of each box to help you organize there. Images should be uploaded to your computer and a back-up CD made just in case. If printing the images for boxes, set the printer to draft or ink saver mode. You will still be able to identify the items but it will be cheaper to print. If you are using actual film, have it developed before you move and keep it with your personal papers.
Ok, so with camera in hand I did my walk through both inside and outside mainly for scrapbooking. This will be the final chapter on this house as it is right now so I want to do a nice layout of how our house looked before we moved. The next thing I did was take pictures of the layout of my bookshelves. I'm rather particular about this so could likely do the layout from memory but a picture will help just in case. I have an inuckshuck in the garden that I'm bringing to the new house. This is construction using only the physics and positioning of the rocks and while I could likely reconstruct it from memory, I decided to take a picture so reconstruction will only take a couple of minutes. I took several pictures of the electronic layout for the television equipment for both televisions. Our stove has a downdraft system so I took pictures of that just in case.
On moving day as soon as we get the word to pick-up the keys, I'll slip to do that as well as stop at the new house to take pictures. I'll go through room by room so that we have pictures of the inside without the current owners possessions and before we start putting ours in. This will serve as another scrapbook moment as well as giving us a pictorial of what the house looked like before we owned it. I am using the tip of taking pictures of what is in certain boxes but only on certain boxes.
When I started this post, I fully intended to discuss both packing and why to use a camera. However, the post is getting long so I'm going to break it into two posts. Watch for tomorrow's post dealing with my method for packing and cameras.
Until then,
Garden Gnome
© 2007
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