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. When it comes to furniture specifically, it is important to think through what to keep, what to leave and why to start fresh.

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.

Keeping it all with movers:

Costs easily upwards of ten grand.

They do all the work.

Keeping it all without movers:

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

Purchase a heavy-duty dolly to move large and heavy items.

Rent Moving Truck (which makes you the moving truck driver too.)

Line up enough help to move everything into the truck. (may require hiring this help)

Line up help at the new location to move it all back out of the truck into your new place.

Return Truck.

Moving yourself is more steps to arrange, a lot of physical work for you, still requires help, and it’s still quite an expense, if anything, on your nerves.

Paying to Take Everything Can Cost More than Repurchasing Different Furniture

If you move with only what you can move, like medium sized boxes and no furniture, you can purchase new furniture shipped right to the new house and placed in the house by the furniture delivery. No lifting required of you that way either and its quite possibly thousands of dollars cheaper than paying a moving company to move the old stuff. I tend to buy very few things new and lots of items used, which means I spend less money to replace all of my furniture than it would cost me to keep and ship what I already own.

Yes, it’s a hassle to get big used furniture pieces to a new place without movers or a furniture delivery. God bless my husband. So, keep that in mind, it might save you money, but you still need lifting power for certain items found used in your new location. Plus, you need the will and the time to find good deals on lightly used items and go through the hassle of picking them up and loading them and unloading them. So, paying to ship everything you already own might be easier on you depending on your situation, even if it is more expensive. After all, there is a 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 think how much nice furniture you could buy for 10K if you are thrifty, and you have the time.

These are the only two reasons that I pay to keep furniture instead of repurchasing:

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

Now, 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. But when you do have a special piece that is irreplaceable, it makes sense to keep it.

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

Keep the pieces that serve a specific purpose that would be needless re-do. 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.

Keep in mind that paying movers to move less things cuts the cost of the move. So even if you pay movers, you still save money by having them take only the best items.

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

Let those pieces go! 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 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 that subpar comfort go! Moving can be freeing like that. It’s ok to have a different preference or a different need in furniture now.

Your current furniture will not necessarily look right in your new home.

Different homes have a different number of walls to put furniture against, different lay outs, and different sized rooms, which might mean you have too much furniture or not enough, or a style that just doesn’t suit the new place. 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. Maybe you don’t even have a new place lined up yet and things will be in storage. Do not be surprised when you move old furniture into a new place, and it just doesn’t work. So why even pay for storage all that time to just find that out? To someone who hasn’t moved much or ever, you wouldn’t realize that it’s normal for different homes to have different furniture needs.

There is something very freeing about starting fresh.

After all, our style shifts, our needs change and the new place may just look better with something different. Hopefully this helped you reason through the best decisions for your move.

Happy Moving