Is there a Movr website to help my sister move?

December 30, 2008 7:46 AM

Is there a good schedule/list site that can help you move houses?

My sister sold her house, hooray! She's moving about 45 minutes away into another house. She's got all the money and paperwork stuff down but she could probably use a little help on scheduling and organizing the blocks of time in the two months before she has to be out of the house she's lived in for ten+ years. She's doing a combination of self-move and getting movers to handle all the big furniture stuff. She has a LOT of stuff, some stuff stored at her place by friends and some stuff that probably just needs to be freecycled.

I've seen neat checklists like this one but I was wondering if there's a website that can be a little more in-your-face like sending you reminders over email or with some sort of simple 2.0-type calendar interface about what is a good idea to do when? A book with a similar timeline would be good too, but she's someone online a lot like me, so the more she could, say, get something that interfaces with her inbox, the simpler it would be. Any "oh we wish we'd known this" tips about moving houses would be helpful.

Again, this is about the logistics of moving mostly not about financing or finding a place or dealing with realtors for the most part. Thanks very much.

posted by jessamyn to home & garden (6 comments total)

This is not a website with emails, but was definitely useful with the checklists and times.
posted by sulaine at 7:51 AM on December 30, 2008

I've moved a lot but I've never used a premade checklist. In my experience there are too many particulars that have to do with your situation. I do usually make my own list, writing down a general todo list that includes things like "1. call truck rental, 2. sign new lease, 3. call current landlord, 4. get rid of groceries in the fridge," etc etc, but then for the actual moving *something I usually end up doing alone- can't afford movers* I have a list of each room and what's in each. It doesn't have to be too detailed, more of a

Bedroom:
clothes in dresser
clothes in closet
shoes
boxes under bed
jewelry
mirror
lamp
etc
etc

sort of thing. That may not be the kind of prep you were looking for, but maybe it will help.
posted by big open mouth at 7:58 AM on December 30, 2008

You say she has a lot of stuff - can you suggest that she edit down her possessions before she moves? We got rid of so much stuff before we moved houses, and that helped more than anything else we did. She will save DAYS in packing, moving, and unpacking things she hasn't used for five years and might never use again. Someone on MeFi recommended the book Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui, and I found it so helpful. I'm not usually a new-agey Feng Shui type of person, but the author gives a really good framework for emotionally and practically dealing with stuff. Now is the time to get rid of things; she won't have time for it later.

She should start boxing stuff up sooner than she thinks she needs to. We started boxing seldom-used things at least a month before our move, and we were still scrambling to get everything packed in time.

This is mostly common sense, but make sure the boxes are labeled with their destination rooms, and put a special label on any boxes that contain items for immediate use (I think on the first day we used basic kitchen stuff, a first aid kit, and cleaning supplies).

How much overlap does she have with the two places? We had three days, and we needed every second. If she can swing it, having both places available for a week will be so much easier, especially since they're 45 minutes apart.
posted by robinpME at 9:47 AM on December 30, 2008

I don't know of a particular site that will do what you want, but you could combine a checklist like what is given above with something like Google Calendar. One easy way to do it might be to copy and paste a checklist into an email and then edit it to associate dates and times with the items on the list. Then if you send it to a Gmail account you can set up Google calendar to automagically add the events and times to your calendar. Then you can set it so the events trigger email reminders.

I haven't actually used the automagic features of Google Calendar so YMMV.
posted by jefeweiss at 10:12 AM on December 30, 2008

Canada Post offers some help. Not quite what you want, but it could be useful.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:00 PM on December 30, 2008

Thanks for all your help everyone. The asnwer seems to be pretty much "no" but I sent her to the Canada Post site and bought her a book and that seemed to get most of the major parts done. She moves in three weeks, thanks for all your help!
posted by jessamyn at 6:23 AM on January 30