Moving in together: boring, practical, preliminary edition

September 12, 2015 4:33 PM

My girlfriend and I are moving out of our separate apartments and into a new shared apartment next month, and we can't find advice on the smallest, most boring, most preliminary question: whether to schedule two separate moves to haul our stuff or to combine things with a single move that makes three stops. We'll be using either a moving service or gentleman with a gentlevan in Brooklyn. What should we do?

We live near each other, and I live VERY near our new place. My girlfriend is in south Williamsburg and I am in north Greenpoint, and we're moving a few blocks away in north Greenpoint. We're both moving out of rented rooms, and we don't have much stuff (honestly, we probably have less combined stuff than a standard studio apartment move, because we are getting most of our furniture after we move).

If either of us had a driver's license or a friend of superior generosity, this would probably be an ideal move for a small U-Haul. But we don't have either, so we're trying to figure out how to do this with pro movers.

We can't decide whether it would be wiser/cheaper/better (or more-expensive-but-better-and-wiser) to a) schedule two independent moves and meet at the new place or b) arrange with a company to start at hers, drive up to mine and pick up my belongings, then drop everything off at the new place. I'm thinking that the separate moves could easily be made with a man/van, and that the combined moves might juuuust tip into requiring a small moving van. I don't know if that factors into the math here.

If it matters, here's what we're moving:

30 small boxes of books (me 20, her 10)
3 ikea bookcases (me 2, her 1)
full mattress and box spring (her)
20 medium boxes of kitchen things and clothes (me 10, her 10)
3 lamps (me)
1 light ikea dresser (me)
1 light ikea desk, disassembled (me)

Most of my googling turns up advice for the thornier, more interesting aspects of moving in together--like money and sex--not the move itself.

What should we do?

posted by scarylarry to Human Relations (8 answers total)

Best answer: It's definitely going to be cheaper and easier to add a stop to one move than to contract with two different companies to make two separate moves and hope the timing works out.

Have all of your stuff packed up and ready to go the day before and staged by the door. Hire the mover for the first available move of the day, spend the night at the girlfriend's place, and get her all loaded up. Stop at your place on the way over, load your stuff as quickly as possible, and head to your new place. You'll be done before lunch.

Don't overthink this. Pick the scenario with the fewest moving parts with the maximum number of people working together and get it over with as quickly and cleanly as you can.
posted by phunniemee at 4:43 PM on September 12, 2015 [14 favorites]

Best answer: I would do b) to keep it simple even if it was more expensive, because moving sucks enough without making it more complex than it needs to be, but I can't imagine hiring two separate operations would be cheaper (even if it is a smaller truck).

When we did this, we did b). It worked out well. The movers didn't blink an eye at the three-pronged move and we helped carry the stuff out to speed it up. After the first place was packed I zipped over to the new apartment so I was there when they arrived after stopping at his place. Easy peasy.
posted by quaking fajita at 4:47 PM on September 12, 2015

Best answer: My tip is to ask that you be the first move of the day. Always ask to be the first move of the day. Otherwise all your plans can turn to dust as the movers get progressively delayed by events. Movers once they arrive turn out to be shockingly fast.

I think your move will probably need more than a van.
posted by srboisvert at 4:49 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Why not option c? You do two moves, back to back, with the same company or guy with van. Go to her place, pick up stuff, drop it off at the new place, then go to your place, pick up stuff, drop it off at the new place. It doesn't sound like there would be any significant time/cost savings to doing three total stops instead of two back to back trips, as your place is very near to the destination anyways. That would also make it easier to fit everything into a van. But, yeah, don't overthink this.
posted by ssg at 4:49 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Remember that you may begin paying for the movers as soon as they leave /their/ warehouse. Check that moving contract !!

If that is the case (as it is here in BC) I would recommend a point to point to point move: pick up one set of things, pick up the other, then move the lot up to your new home.
posted by seawallrunner at 6:09 PM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: A lot of movers require a minimum number of hours, so I think your best bet is to use the same movers for both of you.
posted by salvia at 6:54 PM on September 12, 2015

Best answer: That sounds like the sort of bike move I would do single-handedly. You're not going far and you didn't really list that much stuff. Do you know anyone with a burley trailer you could borrow? How many friends with bikes do you have? Do they like pizza?
posted by aniola at 7:21 PM on September 12, 2015

Best answer: We went storage location (my stuff) to his studio (all boxed up already) to our new flat in one trip. It was infinitely easier than anything else and much quicker than driving between new flat twice. I had the majority of the furniture (sofa etc), so we were using a small moving van but it definitely wasn't full up, even after we collected his stuff and the movers preferred it (I asked when I booked)
posted by halcyonday at 5:48 AM on September 13, 2015