Starting Over Moving Tips: What Furniture to Leave, Take, & Why to Start Fresh

Ladies,

This past summer found me breaking camp here in the Southeast US for the long journey of moving back to the West Coast of the US. Even after 20 years of moving constantly, I still enjoy looking up other people’s moving and packing tips. But most tips are about how to pack not how to reason through what to keep and the cost of moving things vs repurchasing. You can read about How to Furnish an Entire House for Less than $5,000 here.

Many People Find This Shocking But…

You might want to get rid of all your furniture or most of it and just start over when you get there. I once offered this advice to a lady who was moving across the nation and the idea was outlandish to her. But take a look at the reasoning for a moment.

PAYING MOVERS TO KEEP IT ALL:

Costs $10,000 & upward.

MOVING IT YOURSELF TO KEEP IT ALL:

Costs hundreds of dollars for wrapping & boxes.

Costs days or weeks to wrap every piece properly (plastic around drawers so they don’t open in transit/ strapping moving blankets around pieces to prevent damage.)

It costs the price of a heavy-duty dolly to move large and heavy items.

It costs renting a moving truck (which makes you the moving truck driver too.)

It costs effort to find enough help to pack everything into the truck or hiring help to pack it.

It costs hiring help at the new location to move it all back out of the truck into your new place.

It “costs” returning the moving truck on time while you are exhausted from moving.

Moving yourself is more steps to arrange, a lot of physical work for you, still requires help, and it’s still very expensive.

Paying to Take Everything Can Cost More than Repurchasing Different Furniture

If you buy mostly secondhand furnishings as I do, it is thousands of dollars cheaper to replace all furniture than the cost of shipping what is already owned.

Yes, it’s a hassle to transport big used furniture pieces once settled in the new place. Keep that in mind, that repurchasing secondhand furniture in the new location can save you money vs spending the 10K on movers, but you still need a truck and lifting power for certain items found used in your new location. Plus, you may not find secondhand items quickly, it may be a long few months of slowly buying this and that. There is a “cost” to that as well. I have lived without furniture for months to do this.

Paying to ship everything you already own is more expensive. But there is value in keeping your items. There is value in getting to a new place and being able to set up without needing to spring into action to find what you need.

But if you can “camp” in your new home while you thrift and garage sale, it is less expensive doing that than moving what you already owned to that new location.

Think how much nice furniture you could buy for 10K of the cost of moving your current items if you are thrifty.

There are only two reasons that I pay to move furniture instead of repurchasing:

1. It is a one-of-a-kind piece, and I am attached to it.

At first, I feel like this about pretty much everything I own, after all, I curated it all and it’s all nice. However, when I analyze further, I find that many of my items have counterparts that are easy to find and not super expensive to obtain (less than the cost of paying to move the current pieces). In fact, even some of my “one-of-a-kind” pieces ended up being an “it worked for now” piece. I have moved enough to know that there is no shortage of equally as beautiful pieces that I will eventually find. When you do have a special piece that is irreplaceable, it’s fine to pay to move it with you!

2. It serves a specific purpose that would be pointless to replace when I already have the perfect solution

My sewing desk is the perfect size for my machine, the fabric I work with and the scissors and pins I keep on the opposite side of my machine while working. Finding a desk in this exact size and style that I like would be unlikely and also unnecessary since I own exactly what I need for sewing already. This was in fact the only furniture piece that made the cut for our current cross country move. You might have those special pieces too, even if you don’t bring the whole house.

Sometimes we hang on to things even when they are not what we would purchase right now.

Moving is your chance to act on changing needs and preferences. I loved my sofa set but over time I realized that like most sofas, the back was low enough that there was no way to rest my head and neck. How am I just noticing that sofas require me to use my muscles like this when I’m trying to relax? I must be getting old because I don’t just care how pretty a sofa is anymore, I want the back of the sofa to go high enough that I can relax my head and neck against the back fully. My current sofa set was beautiful, but I let my aging needs inform my next purchase! Moving can be freeing like that. It’s ok to have a different preference or a different need in furniture now.

The fact is, your current furniture will not necessarily look right in your new home.

People may not know this if they are not much of a decorator, or they have not moved enough to have noticed this. But not all furniture looks good in different environments. From the way the natural light does or does not light the room to different lay outs, and different sized rooms. Ceiling height plays into whether furniture will look appropriately sized. Consider if the new ceilings will be higher or lower. Your current furniture may look undersized or oversized in the new place. Consider where those pieces are placed now and if the new place offers similar spots for them. All of this will make your current items work or not work in a new home.

Maybe you don’t even have a new place lined up yet and furnishings will be in storage. So why even pay for storage all that time to just find out that you need or want something different for the new home? Anything in storage is liable to get dirty and potentially be exposed to rodents or rodent droppings and urine. To someone who hasn’t moved much or ever, just know that it’s normal for different homes to have different furniture needs and it’s ok to get there and realize you need to redo things.

Enjoy the freedom of starting fresh.

Our style shifts, our needs change and the new place may just look better with something different. Use moving as an opportunity to fine tune things, let old things cycle out, and just keep the few special things and save $10,000 on movers by downsizing!

Hopefully this helped you reason through the best decisions for your move. Sometimes we just need to know that getting rid of things is a reasonable option when moving. It certainly has saved us money to repurchase not to lug everything with us.

Happy Moving