We have packed up two houses in two massive weekends! The first was emptying the Holiday House introduced in Episode 2, ready for settlement this coming week. That’s how we’re paying for this whole adventure around Australia. We had to clear the entire house of all its contents and did so by selling, giving away and throwing away everything else we had there. Oh and there was a few sneaky things that made their way back home to our place! We had a couch and ottoman left over that was far better than our own!
The only problem? We had to pack up our house too. This is the first episode the episode number has surpassed the number of weeks left until we set off on our big lap around Australia. We have just 5 weeks to go, so things are getting very serious. 5 weeks! So we’ve had to get moving. Literally!
This week in Episode 6 we’re packing up the house, organizing things like mail redirection, renting out the house, storing our contents plus getting the boys starting to think about what they want to take with them on our Lap of Australia. Check out the video above or on Youtube for everything that’s been going on plus out Top 10 tips for packing up and storing your own house belongings.
We’ve moved 3 times in the past 5 years, packed up and sold a holiday house and helped multiple friends and family move house in the past 12 months. We think we can safely claim to be experts when it comes to packing up and storing or moving your belongings.
If you’ve been following along in our Episodes we have had a massive 5 weeks:
Steph had been really looking forward to this past weekend, our first chance to turn our attention to the house, specifically starting to get it all packed up and organized. We will be renting out the house whilst we are away for a year, and basically everything needs to be packed up and stored for the full 12 month period.
So what is the best way to approach packing up your house? Let’s look at how we like to do it.
Here’s our Top 10 tips for packing up your home, moving or storing your belongings:
TIP 1: Use a strategy for stuff you just don’t need
First thing is to identify what you don’t want or don’t need going forward. We tend to collect things over time. Some of it’s ours, some of it is other peoples, some of it is stuff we just won’t ever need to use but tend to put in different storage nooks and crannies. Steph likes to have three containers year round for stuff to go back to others, stuff for the op shop and stuff to store long term. Keeps it all getting stuck places and building up over time, or worse yet never making it out of there!
You can sell things online on eBay, Gumtree or Facebook, or just have a garage sale. Whatever is left? Well get rid of it, don’t store it!
Be ruthless! Less stuff = Less storage! We’re betting when we come back from 12 months on the road we will come back as minimalists. We might not ever even put this stuff back in the house after living in a caravan for 12 months!
TIP 2: Use good quality storage boxes & bags
Get lots of boxes, containers etc. But make sure you get good quality ones. Plastic beats boxes. Good quality boxes beats old beer boxes. Be creative though! Use suitcases, backpacks and other containers you won’t need why you are away.
TIP 3: Get creative with where you’ll store things
Work out where you are going to store everything. You can use professional offsite storage, friends and family if you are very lucky, or in our case we have a garage and office that we will be locking everything up in onsite at our house. It even has storage above the office in a mezzanine. We’ve had to lean on family to store our trailer and car though, whilst we are away.
TIP 4: Have a plan for the big items of furniture
Think about the space you’re going to use, how things will fit and store in there. If you have big items, what is the plan to make it all work. If you can, try to rent out your house with furniture if you are comfortable with that. Sure beats storing it somewhere. We have experience with holiday lets, where people generally come to party, and all of the furniture really holds up well.
For a 12 month rental things should generally hold their own. SO if you can get a tenant who will take your stuff, it sure makes it easier! Otherwise, refer Tip 1 before you start to pack it all away.
TIP 5: Get the kids involved – they will surprise you!
Deploy your minions! Kids can do anything. We gave the boys the job of preparing their own rooms and they jumped at the responsibility. Each have been allocated their own storage box to take with us, everything else needs to be packed up. A warning though – try to hide old kids stuff that they no longer want from the younger kids who suddenly think it’s awesome. A vicious cycle where nothing get’s put away and EVERYTHING is important.
TIP 6: Start with the books & toys if you have kids
Get on top of the toys! Some toys will be old, some outgrown. That’s a great place to start if you have young kids like us. Give it to friends and families, take it to op shops or store it for safe keeping. You may have noticed in the last couple of episodes our kids love Lego. It was a lot of fun smashing up the entire city back to bricks. Now to decide how many kilos of Lego we take with us!
TIP 7: Get on top of the garden maintenance
Clean up outside too! Make sure you get the garden under control, in good repair ready for a tenant. We have chickens and ducks so had to get outside repairing the gardens and washing away the chicken and duck poop from Winter! Get all those jobs done now,not when the tenants arrive. You will be amazed how things you have just lived with will suddenly become major issues for fresh tenants.
TIP 8: Be creative with your packing
Pack things safely. By using good quality boxes and containers you will know everything is there when you come back. Refer to Tip 2 on that point. Use pillow slips, towels and tea towels to pack things up safely. Packing up twice as fast! Pillow slips will protect breakables, towels can fill gaps. Picture frames can be wrapped in towels and placed in suitcases.
TIP 9: Pack up the kitchen into small containers
Pack up the kitchen into containers that can go straight into the caravan. Starting early with the kitchen will save a lot of pain later. Eat just from the fridge, freezer and pantry and finally get it back to bare shelves! If you have large containers and canisters, they most likely won’t be suitable for the caravan, so switch over to small light containers suitable for their new home whilst you are away. When you get back, you can transfer back, or as we plan to do, retain them so you are good to go anytime again in the future.
TIP 10: Don’t go too crazy too early
You still need to live! Don’t pack it all up and spend a month + living on milk crates and phone books (yep they used to have phone books AND milk crates!). Have a plan where you are going to store everything (refer Tip 4), but hold off packing it away until you have to.
Leave a couple of days prior to the tenant arriving so you can get the house empty to allow thorough cleaning and photography for your own records and piece of mind.
So that’s it, after a couple of weekends plus some late nights we’re set to go. We’ll move out a few days prior to our tenants moving in, hopefully mid to late December time frame. We’re starting to advertise in the next week, although we did put an add up in the local Facebook groups too in case we can rent it to a local privately.
Check out the video above for some more tips on how to rent out your home, redirect mail and organize all the re-connections!
Next week – big news! Our caravan is going on the assembly line and in just 5 days it will go from a chassis frame to a full caravan. We’re hoping to get a few sneak peaks of the process as Jayco go about building our home for the next 12 months and beyond!