Stalled Moving Plans? Try Self Storage!

Has the COVID-19 pandemic stalled your moving plans? We know how stressful that can be. Living out of boxes, moving around the clutter of organized chaos of wrapped decorations and stacks of luggage and cardboard, and waiting until it’s safe for you to hire a moving company or ensure your new place is ready is maddening. Let’s face it: it’s not fun! If you’re at your wits end, consider moving some of the clutter into a self storage unit until you can get out of your current living situation. 

 Here at Albuquerque Self Storage, we offer numerous indoor and outdoor storage unit sizes to fit your needs. From 6-foot by-4 foot, which is ideal for several boxes and office equipment such as a file cabinet, office chair and a desk, to 15-foot by 22-foot units that can fit furniture from a four bedroom home, a washer and dryer,and more; you’re guaranteed to have the space you need. 

We also know that spending money on non-essentials right now is not the easiest thing for some families. Our month-to-month contracts are flexible and affordable to help you manage your finances. Just give us a call and we’ll help you in any way we can. 

Regardless of if you want a self storage unit or not, we wanted to give you some tips on making stalled moving plans a little easier to live with. 

1. Unpack ONLY the Essentials

It’s not fun living out of your luggage, so why not unpacking the essentials? We don’t mean resembling your bookshelves, bed frame, and dining room tables, but we do mean unpacking some of your clothes, taking out your toiletries, and making your home feel less like a storage unit and more like a home. 

You can also assemble a small table and chairs so you and your family have a place to eat together. Do what you can to get back into your normal routine without completely undoing all of the hard work you’ve already put into the move. 

If you have small kids, take out a few toys and leave the rest of them packed away. Make a list of what you took out and assign them a designed “drop off zone” for when your child is done playing with it. If you can, hide the toy box from them too, so it’s out of sight and out of mind. This way, you won’t be stumbling to pick up everything when you’re ready to move out. 

2. Consolidate the Clutter

Do a quick inventory of what you have packed and what rooms are least used. You can use the empty rooms that have light foot traffic as your own personal storage unit! Arrange the room like you would a moving van, but in reverse. 

All of the lightweight items that you’ll need immediately when you’re in the new place should be either in the very back of the room or kept separating from the rest, while the larger and heavier items should be toward the door. This way, the movers won’t need to navigate around a packed room to fill the truck!

It also allows you to close a door and block the clutter from sight while you’re waiting to move. This way, you have more room to walk around, clean, and relax!

3. Dress up the Empty Spaces

Now, let’s combine steps one and two. With all of your essentials out and your home looking emptier than usual with all of the boxes out of the way, what do you do with all the new space?

Dress it up! Make it feel like a home again.

If you didn’t reassemble a table, lay down an old blanket that you were going to use as a furniture protector and turn the floor into a picnic area! Just older throw pillows as seats and lamps that aren’t in boxes as light sources. 

You can also use empty moving boxes and old blankets to make a fort for your kids to play in! For added fun, take one of the kids’ mattresses and put it in the fort. This will help keep them occupied, comfortable, and give them a new place to play and nap in. As a bonus tip: it can help them feel more secure than they did if they were sleeping in an empty room. Just be sure the fort is stable and won’t fall over before doing this. 

And that’s it! Those are our tips to make a pushed back moving date a little more bearable. When you’re ready to move into a unit, we have a blog for that too! Head on over there to see our easy guide on moving into a storage unit.