How To Pack Your Car For a Move

If you aren't hiring professional movers or if you have hired professional movers but still have a certain amount of things you wish to transport personally the first thing you should do is decide which things you should take with you in your car. There is the old adage when it comes to more, sort, shrink, then move. The sort is fairly self-explanatory, shrink, means to get rid of unneeded things and then you are free and clear to decide what it is you will want to bring.

Now obviously you won't want to try and take things that are both very heavy and very awkward, such as a bed or refrigerator (unless it's a mini-refrigerator), rather you should stick to things that you can keep boxed or bagged up so that when you put your things in the trunk they won't be spilling out all over the place. The last thing you want to do after having spent half a day packing and loading your things into your car is to then have to repack everything the moment you get to your new destination.

Overhead carriers can be very helpful when moving and you can attach a lot of things to them, but you should remember not to overload your car otherwise it will begin to affect the steering control and may have complications.

Things you might want to take with you in your car are things such as electronics, not overly large, but a fragile item that requires great tenderness (a tenderness and deliberation that movers and haulers don't always have, however well intentioned). Other things you might want to take in your car can include sentimental things such as family heirlooms, money, financial documents, fragile glass, and chinaware as well as blankets and a change of clothes that way you don't have to go digging about the first night you arrive at your new home to find something to change into.

In addition to overhead carriers, there are a number of other tools that will assist you in the event of a move, some of these tools are included here.

Vacuum Storage Bags: these are excellent for space conservation, if for instance, you have a very large and billowing blanket just stick it in a vacuum storage bag and compress it, this will save you a great deal of space. One should be careful with some of the more powerful vacuum storage bags out there as they can actually damage your items permanently. For instance, let us say that you have a very puffy pillow which gets its puffiness from air pockets within the construction of the pillow itself, it would then be a very bad idea to put such a pillow in a vacuum as it will be flattened, probably permanently as the air will have been sucked free of it.

Using plastic bags, such as simple black or see-through garbage bags, can be a very good alternative to using vacuum storage bags and is often a much more space-efficient method of storage than boxes. Boxes should only be used for things that shouldn't be twisted or smashed, such as DVDs, CDs, and books. But for items that can bear the brunt of a good squishing and twisting, like clothes and cords, then you will find that you are able to save a lot of space by using bags rather than boxes.

If you use boxes to pack and are storing anything fragile inside of them make sure you add some kind of soft liner. Some good ones are packing peanuts, Styrofoam, cloth and/or cardboard.