According to psychologists, moving is one of the most stressful events in one’s life that doesn’t involve the loss or gain of a family member. That is true regardless of your health status. While there is probably no such thing as a 100 percent trouble free move, there are steps you can take to cut back on the amount of effort required.

Before Putting the House on the Market
You’ve decided you’re going to be selling the house at some point. If there is no particular timeframe required, you can take advantage of having the luxury of sprucing up your home prior to listing it for sale. Finances will also be your guide in this.
If your home has electrical or plumbing not up to code, that will be your first priority as you will not be able to sell until it is updated. Unless you are related to a professional electrician or plumber (or happen to be one yourself), you’ll probably need to hire one. Particularly with the electrical, don’t skimp on safety.
If your house is merely aesthetically outdated, you have a few options. The simplest is to sell your home as a fixer-upper and let the buyer do the redecorating. The downside to this is that your selling price may be low.
But if you have the time and budget, remodeling the kitchen and bathroom will give you the best return on your money. If you haven’t the expertise or the spoons to do it yourself, you may need professional assistance. One rule of thumb here is to not outdo your neighbors. If most remodeled homes in your immediate area have, say, hardwood in the kitchen and linoleum in the bathroom, you probably don’t need to invest in travertine and granite. It may be more difficult to sell your home if it is the most expensive one in the neighborhood.
What do you do if you need to sell ASAP and/or don’t have the cash for major redecoration but still feel the need to spruce up your house? Here are some little things you can do that will help a lot:
1. Paint if it is needed. Paint is reasonably inexpensive, and there brands you can buy that don’t have excessive fumes for those of you who are sensitive. If you’re in a super hurry and can’t paint entire rooms, just filling in nail holes and touching them up works wonders.
2. If you have hardwood floors that show some dings, scratches and fading, you no longer have to get them completely sanded and refinished. For much less money, you can get them touched up and renewed enough that they look almost as good as new. There are some fumes involved with retouching hardwoods, but they dissipate fairly quickly and are not nearly as hazardous to those with breathing issues as the old fashioned sanding route.
3. Chips in porcelain sinks can be touched up rather than replacing the sink.
4. Putting in new fixtures can make the whole bathroom look nicer.
5. Wooden decks or fences that are beginning to fade can be waterproofed or varnished to look newer.
6. Power wash the exterior of your home to get it clean without the hazard of climbing on ladders to reach the second floor.
7. Touch up or paint windowsills, banisters, doors, baseboards and medicine cabinet interiors if they are stained or dinged.
8. If your toilets are showing slight wear, just replace the lids and seats to make the whole thing look newer.
9. Tighten or secure anything that is loose. Replace any burned out bulbs.
10. Make sure any mechanical device that is part of the house is in working order.
Nowadays, if you are unable to do small fixes yourself, you can hire a handyman service. They will send one or two people out do any number of small jobs over the course of a day or two. This is particularly helpful when you need to get your house on the market quickly.
Cleaning, De-cluttering and Staging
Even the most desirable houses are difficult to sell if they are cluttered and dirty. And a plain Jane home can look quite attractive if it is clean and staged well. So it is worth your while to make your house as presentable as possible.
Start by doing a walk-through of every nook and cranny of your home. Make a list of what you will throw away, what you want to donate to charity or sell, what can be packed away and stored, and what you will keep in the house for staging. Keep in mind that when potential buyers tour your house, they will be looking inside your closets and cabinets, so those need to be tidy too.
If you are a pack rat who hates to part with anything, remember that every item you keep will have to be lugged to your next home. You will save yourself spoons if you can throw some stuff away, particularly if it’s something that doesn’t work and can’t be fixed. Get some large black trash bags and promise yourself that anything you throw in there will not be retrieved. When a bag is full, close it up and haul it to the trash before you can change your mind. You will thank yourself later.
If you will be moving to a smaller place or intend to replace certain items after you’ve moved, you may need to hold a garage sale or donate items to charity. You might want to try a sale first, particularly if you have furniture to get rid of, and then donate whatever doesn’t sell. If you have a lot of clothing in good condition, you can look into a near-new or consignment shop.
It might seem at first to be unnecessary work to be packing before your house goes on the market, but in the long run it may save you spoons to pack once now to de-clutter and then finish up with the remaining stuff once you get a closing date. Box up anything you won’t absolutely need between now and when you move, especially personal photographs, extra sets of china, off-season clothing, large collections, receipts older than one year, souvenirs (unless they are artwork you can use for staging), or anything that makes your house cross the line from lived-in to cluttered. What do you do with all this stuff? Ideally, if you can afford it, have a moving and storage company drop off portable storage units at your home, fill them yourself (or have family and friends do it), and then have the moving company drop off the units in a controlled-climate facility until you are ready to move. If this is beyond your budget, see if you can borrow some storage space from neighbors, friends or family. Goodbye clutter!
Now all that should be left are the essentials and whatever you use for staging. Staging is a relatively new concept, and all it really means is arranging the items in your home so as to accent its best features and present the house in the most favorable light. If you have the funds, you can actually hire someone to do this for you. Some realtors are good with staging, and if you know someone who moved recently, they might be able to give you pointers. There are also television shows and websites dedicated to the concept. If there are model homes in your area, take a tour to see what is popular.
You do want some furniture in the house so that potential buyers can have a concept of what their possessions might look like in there. Think of every item in each room as a place holder. Each piece should look like it belongs in that room and doesn’t cause undue attention away from your home’s features.
Large clusters of family photos are distracting. You want a buyer to be admiring your hardwood floors, the size of the room, the way the windows flood the living areas with light, not focusing on pictures of your adorable three year old niece. You can use your own photos and collectibles as artwork for staging if they are impersonal (like landscape or architecture photos) and not excessive in number.
A lot of articles on staging recommend green plants or fresh flowers in the home. If you haven’t the energy to maintain live plants, you can use simple arrangements of silk flowers as accents. You can get them fairly inexpensively at a craft store.
Now that your house is de-cluttered, it needs to be scrubbed top to bottom. The simplest way to accomplish this is to hire someone. If, however, you are going to tackle this yourself or have friends and/or family do it, here are some suggestions:
1. When wiping down painted surfaces, beware of cleansers that are too strong and remove the paint along with the dirt. Something like Simple Green (diluted if necessary) is gentle enough to leave paint intact but strong enough to remove grime. If you are not sure about a product, test it on an inconspicuous area before you swipe it across a wall.
2. For scuff marks, try one of those “magic eraser” squares. These are very effective on white walls.
3. A portable steam cleaner, about the size of a Dust Buster, is an excellent tool to freshen up fabric furniture.
4. Use telescoping handles on your cleaning implements like dusters and vacuum cleaners if you can rather than climbing up on a ladder.
5. Clean both sides of your windows where possible so that they will really shine.
6. Draperies may need to be taken down and professionally cleaned if a vacuum won’t do the trick. Vinyl blinds should be wiped down carefully so they won’t get dented.
7. Gleaming fixtures make kitchens and bathrooms look cleaner.
8. Don’t forget your overhead lighting fixtures. Take them down and get the dust and bugs out of them. Have someone else do this if you have vertigo and shouldn’t be on a ladder.
9. Polish up your appliances even if they won’t be sold along with the house.
10. Shelves in closets and cabinets should be wiped down and items in them arranged neatly.
If you have a yard, it needs to be well-kept as it will be the first thing a potential home buyer sees. Depending on the season, grass and plants should be trimmed and watered, weeds removed, leaves raked, snow shoveled, patios and porches swept or hosed down. If you don’t have someone to help you with this, see if a neighbor kid would be willing to do it.
Ready to Sell!
You have two main options when it comes to putting your house on the market. You can handle all the details yourself, or you can hire a realtor to sell your home for you. Both of these options have their own advantages.
If you decide to go the “for sale by owner” route, you will not have commission fees, so your asking price can be lower and thus more attractive to buyers. You can arrange for showings when it is convenient for you. If you have the spoons and the savvy (and the patience), you may find this quite rewarding.
If the very notion of selling your house exhausts you, a realtor might be worthwhile to you. They do get a commission on your sale, but a good realtor will work hard for you. They do a comparative market analysis so you price your house right, handle all the advertising, schedule all the showings, help you negotiate offers, set up closing, etc.
Open house weekends have fallen by the wayside in some areas of the country in favor of private tours. If you use a realtor, let him/her know if you will need extra advance notice due to illness prior to a showing. You may want to keep a cell phone handy so that the realtor can reach you about a showing when you are not near your home telephone.
Make use of the internet when selling your house. Some realtors have their own websites with virtual tours of homes for sale. Basically, a video is made scanning 360 degrees in each room of your house, edited, and then placed online. Viewing a property ahead of time is very popular with potential home buyers.
Once your house is officially on the market, you can sit back and relax, right? Not exactly. Since a potential buyer could request a tour at any time (within reason, of course), you will need to keep your home in “show” condition. One way to ensure this is to hire a cleaning service to come in, say, once a week if you can afford it. Or try to get friends or family to at least help you out enough so that you have sufficient energy to do the daily smaller stuff like sorting mail, making beds and keeping up with the dishes.
Here are last minute things to do before a showing:
1. Open all the curtains or blinds if the showing is during the day to make your home look light and bright. For a night-time showing, turn on all the lights, inside and out.
2. Use a sticky lint roller on dark furniture, stairs and bedspreads to remove pet hair quickly.
3. Use a lightweight broom with a long-handled dustpan to quickly remove any obvious dust bunnies on hardwoods.
4. Keep a drawer empty in a hutch, desk or some piece of furniture that isn’t a permanent part of the house where buyers won’t be looking. Stash any unsorted mail or similar clutter in the drawer until the showing is over.
5. If you don’t have the energy to do dishes before a showing, at least put the dishes in the dishwasher if possible.
6. Use a multi-surface cleaning wipe to quickly remove any obvious spills or spots in the kitchen and bathroom.
7. If you have an automatic sprinkler system, make sure it’s not set to go off during the showing.
8. If you have a security system, double check to make sure the alarm won’t sound when the potential buyers enter your home.
9. Put all your medications in a secure spot, preferably not in the medicine cabinet.
10. To give your kitchen the attractive smell of baked goods without the actual baking, get a candle with a scent like cinnamon rolls or apple pie. You can use a candle warmer that disperses the scent by heating the candle without lighting it. These are available in craft stores, as are a variety of candles.
Unless you are personally conducting the tours, it is usually best to not be present during showings. You don’t have to go far, just maybe hop in the car and park someplace a few blocks away until the showing is over. If you cannot leave your house due to illness when a realtor is conducting a showing, be as unobtrusive as possible. Smile and say hello to the potential buyers, but do not engage them in conversation, leaving the realtor to do his/her magic. It might help if you have a book or magazine to focus on. Try not to have the television, computer or music playing as this might be distracting to a buyer.
If you can arrange to not have your pets in the house during a showing, that would be helpful. You wouldn’t want someone to be bulldozed by an over-eager pup or for them to accidentally let your indoor cat outside. The easiest solution might be to take your pet with you in the car for a bit. If your pets must stay at home, do your best to enclose them someplace where they will not get underfoot, like in the backyard for a dog or a back bedroom for a cat, and let your realtor know ahead of time where they will be.

Sold! Now What?
You’ve gotten an offer, negotiated a price both parties can agree on, and have a closing date set. Congratulations! Now you have a known time frame in which to arrange the vacating of your old premises and the taking up residence at your new home.
If you are not capable of doing the heavy lifting in this situation, fear not: most successful moves require a supervisor. Someone needs to coordinate movers or volunteer packers, to make necessary phone calls, to distribute change of address information, etc. You can find moving checklists at post offices or on professional movers’ websites.
Now is the time to decide if you’ll be renting a truck or hiring a company to move your possessions for you. Hauling and packing it yourself (or with the aid of friends and family) will be cheaper, but it will also take up the most time and energy. Moving companies are pricey, but they can load up the entire contents of your house in a single day and can handle back-breaking items like appliances, pianos, sofa beds, etc. Another option is to pack the small stuff yourself and have professional movers take care of the loading, unloading and transport. Whatever your decision, reserve what you’ll need as soon as you know when you’ll need it.
If you will be doing some or all of your own packing, here are some tips:
1. Consider purchasing moving supplies rather than using random boxes from the grocery store. The reason is the movers’ boxes are stronger and more uniform in size, so you can safely stack boxes on top of one another.
2. Don’t use newspaper to wrap your fine china or precious fragile items as the newsprint can rub off and stain them. The dish packs from the moving supply stores contain very sturdy cardboard dividers and cushioned sleeves to protect your breakables. For odd size fragile items, you can buy large rolls of bubble wrap that are clingy on one side so it is self-sticking and you won’t need as much tape.
3. Large rolls of cling wrap are very handy. You can wrap it around items you want to keep together, like the shelves from a bookcase. Or you can wrap it around large unbreakable items to protect them from dirt. You can even wrap it around furniture to hold plastic covers on.
4. Pack heavy items like books in small boxes, distributing the weight in them as evenly as possible. If you have several boxes’ worth of heavy items, fill each box to the top. If you put a few heavy items in the bottom of a box and then fill the rest of it with lightweight stuff like towels, it won’t support the weight of other boxes that are heavier. Boxes that are uniformly packed can be stacked on a dolly and moved in fewer trips.
5. If you are using a professional moving company, ask them if you can leave items in drawers so they won’t have to be packed. Also get from them a list of substances you are not allowed to put on the trucks, such as gasoline and cleaning products, and either dispose of these substances ahead of time or plan to transport them yourself in your own vehicle. Finally, plan to keep items of high value such as computers, jewelry and important documents with you during the move.
6. Use strong packing tape to seal up boxes.
7. Label boxes clearly with a heavy black marker, indicating the contents and what room they will go to. Write this on the top and sides of the box so that you won’t have to move it to read what’s in it. This will save a great deal of time when you are unpacking. Some moving supply stores have color-coded packing tape that say kitchen, bedroom, etc. to make things even easier.
8. Keep a supply of zip-lock bags handy for loose items that need to stay together, like bolts for a bed, screws for a bookcase, nails to hang pictures, etc. Label each bag with a marker so you won’t have to guess what you’re looking at when you unpack.
9. Before disconnecting your computer, stereo or other electronics, label each wire or cable with a description of what it plugs into on each end. Write this on a small sticky note, wrap it around the wire/cable and tape it into place with Scotch tape. Then unplug them, keeping the cables and wires for each device (or group of devices, if you had several going to a common receiver) together with twisty ties. When you reach your destination, you’ll have a head start on how to reconnect your electronics.
10. Prepare for your first 24 hours in your new home by creating an “unpack me first” box. These are items you’ll want right away without having to search for them. For the bedroom: full set of sheets, blankets, pillows, alarm clock. For the bathroom: shower curtain, shower curtain rings, full set of towels, toilet paper, hand soap. For the kitchen: plastic dinnerware, paper plates, paper towels. General: flashlight, screwdrivers, hammer, phone book, telephone, scissors, first aid kit. Label this box prominently and keep it with you.
Getting From Here to There
You’ve closed on the house, finished packing and have either contracted with professional movers or have rented a truck. Now it’s time to load up your household possessions. This is where your supervisory skills come in really handy.
If you’ve got a moving company doing the work, you’ll need to watch each item that heads out the door to make sure it is labeled and inventoried. You might want to ask them to leave a folding chair until last so you’ll have something to sit on as the house empties. Periodically go from room to room to make sure nothing is inadvertently left behind.
If you will be participating in the loading process, do less than you think you are capable of. Robbing yourself of spoons today means you’ll have fewer to use tomorrow, when you’ll need them either for unpacking (if you’re moving a short distance) or travel (if you’re moving far away). Don’t forget to triple check your closets and cabinets for any forgotten items.
Even when you have hired help doing the moving, it can take an entire day to empty a house, so you may be too exhausted afterward to do much else. It may be worth your while to stay at a hotel overnight unless your new home is in the same town. Try to get a good night’s sleep so you can more easily face the next day’s tasks.
Now you’ve got to get from point A to point B. If it will be a long journey, pace yourself, particularly if you will be doing some or all of the driving. This will take up more energy than the average road trip because you may be worn out or sore from getting your household goods ready for transport. If you have any doubt at all as to your ability to remain safely alert while driving or suspect you won’t be able to tolerate too long a trip as a passenger, break the trip up into doable pieces by stopping for the day after a certain amount of travel.
Take care of yourself. Stay hydrated. Try to stay on your regular medication schedule. Even if you have no dietary restrictions, you may want to bring along healthy snacks to tide you over between restaurant meals to keep your energy levels more steady. If traveling by car, get out once an hour or so to stretch your legs and discourage the lure of road hypnosis. If you are a passenger, bring your favorite music to help pass the time and a comfortable pillow for naps.
Unpacking
It may have seemed like this day would never come, but here it is at last: you have arrived at your new home. When it is time for the unloading of your possessions to begin, you might want to grab that folding chair again, at least until the more comfy furniture is available. If you have a moving company involved, you will need your inventory slip handy as you will be expected to check off every item that is unloaded, inspect it for damage and to report anything that is missing.
If possible, set up the bed first of all the furniture. That way, if you run out of steam earlier than expected, you’ll have someplace to rest. Take advantage of your “unpack me first” box and get out your bedding, put towels and soap and toilet paper in the bathroom, and put the tools someplace handy for anyone who needs to do assembly.
If you have properly labeled your boxes with the room they should go in, unloading will be less chaotic. And once the movers have finished or you have turned in your rental truck, you can heave a sigh of relief. Other than things you will need to use in the next few days, you can take as much time as you need for the unpacking, especially with non-necessities like decor or old books or receipts.
Allow for some down time here because even healthy people tend to crash after a move. Ease yourself gently into a daily routine at your new residence when you are ready. Stretch, get acclimated, and sort through a box occasionally. And when everything is at last in place, celebrate. You deserve it.
Submitted by: Karen Brauer, Butyoudontlooksick.com, © 2007