When it comes to DIY moving, you can find quite a lot of advice in our blog. Even though we are professional Chicago movers, meaning we make money of that, we still want you to know there are things you can do by yourself. What’s the catch? It’s just not easy and often time-consuming.
But here we are all about being helpful. Whether you hire us for your next move, or we just give you some advice on how to not have a nightmare while trying to do it yourself, we just want to be of some assistance.
So today we are reviewing an older topic we’ve covered – Color Coding. However, we’ll go a bit more in-depth with it. And don’t forget – if at any point of the process you feel overwhelmed with moving, simply give us a call. But let’s get to the topic at hand.
What is Color Coding?
Color coding is a simple concept. You take several pieces of colored paper, or the preferred alternative – tape in different colors.
Firstly, you have to pack room by room. That means no stuff from your bedroom gets thrown together with kitchen appliances. I know it can be tempting, when there’s enough room in the box, but just don’t. It will save you time and headaches.
So after you’ve boxed everything from the room, you just a piece of tape on each side of the box (or tape a piece of colored paper with transparent tape). Some people use markers but these can be hard to spot later on.
You should have a different color for every room. We can recommend using blue for the bathroom, white for the kitchen, brown/red for the living room, green/yellow for your bedroom and so on. You can really do whatever you want, just remember which color represents which room.
Labeling vs Color Coding
While some of you may say that color coding is a form of labeling, the two are still quite different. For starters, you can label AND color code at the same time. Actually that’s our preferred method. But why?
Well, labeling can give you information on what you can find inside the box and where it has to go, lest you forget. Color coding on the other hand is a simple visual that tells you which box goes to which room. How is that different? Let’s see!
You don’t have to go close to the box in order to know where it should go. You can literally take whichever box you want without spending time in looking for a label and reading it. A simple glance at the color is all you need.
Why use labels then? Because after you’ve color coded everything according to the room, you know what you should start unpacking first. You know exactly what is contained within each box. So labeling also has its merits.
Conclusion
Color coding is effective and simple. You can speed up the entire process of moving by taking the time to color code everything.