Moving Tips!

The big day is quickly approaching, we are doing our final walk through on Sunday, then Keys on Thursday. That's only  . . . . . . . . 6 days away! (commencing shrieking!!!!)
For anyone who is moving I compiled some of my favorite moving tips, tricks and techniques.
If you aren't planning a move, this post won't be of much use to you, Maybe pop over to one of the following blogs:
Layla from The Lettered Cottage has a fabulous Fall Mantle post today!
Janell from Isabella and Max Rooms has a beautiful DIY Bamboo light fixture!
Kate from Centsational Girl has a great pumpkin inspiration post "POSH PUMPKINS"
Julie from Knittlebits did a detailed DIY Pumpkin carving and stencils post!

If you're moving in the near future here's a fabulous Martha Idea for Handles on Boxes, perfect for those of us who might be lacking in the bicep department.
Also here's her moving checklist if your looking for a printout!

But in the words of Montel Jordan "This is how we do it"
~One month Before: Go through your stuff and sell, donate, or trash everything you don't want anymore. DO NOT move things you don't want! (seems like common sense but, there you have it) We use Craigslist or Kijiji to sell unwanted items. Ebay is good for smaller items, Craigslist for larger ones.

~3 weeks before: Gather supplies, tape, boxes, sharpie, labels, etc . . .
Pack up your storage areas, holiday decorations, the attic, memorabilia things that you don't need to function in your day to day life.
Start alerting services that your moving, Gas, Electricity, Cable, Phone.
File a change of address with the post office. We had our mail forwarded to our new address for 6 months, for $40, totally worth it! Not having to worry about who I didn't tell. Now if it turns out I forgot someone, I can just alert them after the move.

~2 Weeks before: The bulk of your items should be packed by the end of the 2nd week countdown. Our solution is to Pack for a weeks vacation one week before the move date, Pack a suitcase like you would if you were going away! It makes it really easy to keep out what you need and really easy to pack up the morning of the Big Move.

Here's where funny Martha Stewart comes in, She suggests at the two week mark to alert your magazine subscriptions that you are moving. So at our two week mark I alerted Martha Stewart Living Magazine that I was moving. At which point I was told that my change of address wouldn't be in effect until the January 2011 issue. I found that Kind of funny. Good thing we payed to get our mail forwarded for 6 months :)

~The week of the big move: Finish Packing! I plan on spending this time to clean the house as we empty the rooms. This should save me a lot of work and time on D-Day. Hopefully the day we move I will only have to Vacuum, sweep and mop under the furniture!

Couple of Bonus Ideas:
-if your hiring movers, you might consider documenting your valuables, just incase something goes missing you'll want to be able to prove you did own.
-Make sure to line up home insurance before you take possession. Have you policy take effect the day you take possession!
-Wardrobe boxes with the metal rod, make great containers for moving chandeliers, you can hang the chandelier off of the rod.

The A B C method of packing, we didn't do this but I could see it being very useful!
Not all boxes need to be un packed right away. Make each box with an A, B or a C. A being High priority unpack. Things you need daily, the toaster, clean underwear ;) B being important but not critical items and C being the decorations etc . . . .

Make a Survival Kit- We use our suitcase with our week's worth of "Vacation Packing" inside. Then at least for one week we know we have what we need! Some people might pack a box with the coffee maker, and other breakfast supplies. We however live in Canada and a Tim Hortons is never very far away, infact I think the closest Timmy Ho's is about a 1 minute car ride from our new house :)

If you're looking for labels, Martha has some printable labels very cute!!!

In my opinion the most important part of packing is LABEL, LABEL, LABEL. There is nothing like opening 10 boxes trying to find a bra, only to find the box with all your bra's in the kitchen a week later.
And bring a roll of toilet paper with you! Never expect the previous owners to leave you toilet paper!


I'll be back later today with a bonus post:
MOVING WITH DOGS!
Then I'll be gone for two weeks. Don't forget to catch us on Twitter, we'll be tweeting like crazy while suffering from blogger withdrawl :) Although I'm sure there is no way I'll be able to stop cold turkey. I'm sure by Wednesday I'll have a relapse :) and be back for a pop in, update!

Can't believe move day is finally here! Thank you so much to all of our fabulous readers, who have followed us through this down time, and shared in our joy! The day we announced our big purchase was the most comments we've received here at The Manor. I truly believe that our house is so blessed already having all the well wishes and sweet comments from our readers!
From our hearts Thank you again!!


~Ashli and Lee
and Max

Our little Manor feels so Empty :(

Poor empty house!! It feels so devoid of life, our house use to have a soul, a personality, now he's just empty (our house is a he by the way :) a lot of our living room and mini-library are packed now. The dining table and chairs are sold, they have been replaced with boxes. There are dirty dishes in the sink and the laundry is starting to pile up. I've been busy packing, running around signing papers, I haven't signed my name this much since I first met Lee and scribbled Mrs.Ashli Malinek on every scrap of paper I could find.
I've been finding the chaos difficult, I'm a stay at home wife/newbee blogger and I've always had dinner ready, lunches packed, clean underwear available (don't get me wrong, we are still wearing clean underwear it's just in the morning they can be found in the dryer instead of the drawer). I'm a little lost right now, but with all good comes a little bad, I should count my lucky stars I'm able to pack, last time we moved I was sick and stuck in the hospital, it was awful, my dear friends had to pack for us. Just a little overwhelmed today I guess.  I'm posting this from our couch, as the office has been ripped out and we no longer have a dining room table. Maybe a coffee shop tomorrow :)
Here's a peek at the chaos, this use to be our dining room:

Max is so helpful, he's our 5 lb guard dog, no ones getting in these boxes without his say so . . . . . Careful he'll lick ya!
And the empty bookcase, the new owner of our beloved manor  included the bookcase in their purchase price so we are leaving it for them :( We're planning of a similar, shorter version in our new house.

So there's the Manor being slowly emptied and boxed up. Back to packing for me, although it's not the packing I mind. Each piece I put in I can't help but remember where I'll be taking it out and it makes me happy.

MOVING TIPS
Yesterday's post brought out some great moving tips from some smart ladies:
Lauren from Simply LKJ suggested Color coding your boxes and your rooms for the movers! 

Janell of Isabella and Max Rooms suggested moving your picture frames, lamps and mirrors the night before your move, or at least move them yourself in your own car, I agree movers aren't the most careful, neither are husbands for that matter. She also suggested stacking the boxes near the entrance, but stacking them in groups i.e. bedroom boxes together, kitchen boxes together etc . . . .

Shell from Scrapes of our lives suggested Looking for boxes at Military bases, those families move a lot! Here in Canada we don't have very many military bases, infact I don't know of a single one, but you ladies to the south of us might know of some.

KDot of Confessions of a wannabe fashionista suggested buying used moving boxes from a moving company, she did that and only paid $3 per box. 

Laura from Life on the Cheap she suggested trying freecycle for boxes.

If anyone else has any packing, or moving tips I'm all ears! Heaven knows I could use the help!

Progress Meeting!

I thought I'd schedule a progress meeting. A lot went on this weekend. I don't know if I've mentioned it before but, we bought a house : )
I found an amazing deal on a large, very large sofa for our Living room. Lee has always wanted a couch with a chaise off one side, and this weekend we were able to secure one for . . . . .$395. It's made by Stylus sofas, the same company that makes our current sofa, as well as my parents sofa they've had for the past 15 years. So we know it's good quality, we know it's huge (all 102 inches of it), and we know for sure it's a great price.
Sorry I don't have a better Picture of our new couch but here it is crammed into our storage space.

We weren't going to buy a couch until we moved but at this price we jumped on it. And if your wondering where our current couch is going to go it's heading to the "library" in our new house :). 
We also found an ottoman at Sears Outlet. I have a huge weakness for round ottomans, so when I saw this one for $179 I was seriously thinking about it, and when my eye hit the big 50% off sign . . . it was wrapped up and in the back of the car. I like the fabric, but am not against the idea of recovering it, we'll see how it goes.
I am super excited I think this picture really represents that :)

We also found a console table for our front hallway. I wanted a fabulous place to greet you when you walk in. A great place to drop your keys and spare change. Maybe a pretty mirror above it to check your make-up on the way out the door, and this piece was perfect. It's a little taller then it probably should be, but both Lee and I are on the tall side so it works really well for us.
This piece was a bit of a splurge for us at $300. But it's solid wood, and I love it, so that was reason enough to splurge.

Next we bought a rug for the Living Room. If you recall last weeks post we were planning on using carpet tiles in our new Manor, we are still going to use carpet tiles but with a 9 foot, by 12 foot rug for $150 we are saving a bundle. We'll have some lovely carpet tiles in the hallway and maybe in the library, although the jury is still out on that one.
And last but certainly not least we picked up a couple of FRONT PORCH ROCKERS. As long as I can remember I've always dreamed of having a front porch and on that front porch were always two two rocking chairs. And this weekend, thanks to an impulse purchase at Liquidation World, we picked up two beauties
for . . . . . $37 each. I know, crazy!!!
So that was our crazy weekend. Meet us back here tomorrow for Library Plans :)

Oh yeah, we also picked up a lot of boxes! 25 cents a box that's 40 boxes for $10 and that included 4 wardrobe boxes! The good deal gods were smiling down on us this weekend, fingers crossed the luck keeps coming :)
Here's our bounty taking up almost all of our dining room. I guess I'm not packing up the books first.

T-24 days until we get the keys!

New House Plans: Living Room

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement, and with 32 days until we move it doesn't look like it will be calming down anytime soon. We've got subscriptions to move and mail to forward. Cable to cancel and bills . . . . . yeah I guess we have to tell the bills we are moving too!
This weeks goal, get boxes! Lots of BOXES!

Moving Tip:
I know a lot of people say to ask stores, liquor stores, grocery stores etc . . . we've moved once with real moving boxes, and found it to be a lot easier, the boxes hold up well, they are larger and hold a lot more. But I am definitely not paying $5 a small box to $13 for a large one. So what we are doing is CRAIGSLIST!!! Craigslist or Kijiji have people who have just moved and are needing to get rid of their moving boxes. Some have the fancy moving boxes and some just have boxes they have collected from liquor stores and grocery stores. Some want money for them, some people are giving them away, but either way you go, you are saving a ton of money. 
We found two people, one person has moving boxes from a moving company. They have 20 boxes, ranging in size from small to extra large, they are selling the lot of them for $20. That's the same price as one Large and one medium box if we were to buy them new. The second person we are getting boxes from has around 20 random boxes, most of them are small liquor store boxes, mostly wine boxes (I can just imagine what our new neighbors will think when we move in with 20 wine boxes), but those boxes are free we just have to go pick them up. 
And just to be sure we have enough boxes we have some fabulous friends who have some boxes in their basement they were so kind to donate to the cause (the cause being our move :)

Now on to our Living Room:
I am so excited to share with you are new living room.

It has so many features that I fell in love with, the windows being the major feature! Huge windows, about 15 feet worth of them. I also Love the fireplace, although I have no idea why they made the cut out above the mantel so tall? But the plan thus far, could change still, is to drywall up the hole. I really don't want the T.V on top of the fireplace and that hole is way too tall! The T.V. will go off to the side on a fabulous console (I still need to find) and a set of pictures above the mantel.
Here's some Ideas I'm loving now:

Photo Via Country Living
I love the pictures above the mantel, Love the bookcases on either side of the fireplace (although we need our t.v. there so we probably won't have bookcases. Love the curtain rod.

Photo via Pottery Barn
I love this! I have no idea where it's going to go but I love it and had to include it into my living room inspiration! LOVE IT!

Photo via Pottery Barn
I love this photo also, I don't think we are going to go with red but I love this idea in any color, ooooo . . . navy blue would be nice.

and last for today: Young House Love's living room

Photo via Young House Love
Love the lightness of the room, the pop of color with the rug. But the reason I included this in my living room inspiration was the windows, I love the sea grass roman shades with the white curtain panels! This is how we want our windows to look!
Be back tomorrow with more living room angles and ideas!
Let us know what you think!