SERVICES

I have worked with lots of moving companies in California, as well as other parts of the country. And as with everything, some are better than others – and I do play favorites.
If you’ve already chosen a moving company, I’m fine with working with anybody. But if you need to choose movers, I have some favorites that I have great relationships with. They’re very competent and always make the move go smoothly.

I’ll be the go-to person when you don’t understand how moving companies work. I will be their contact person, since we speak a common “moving language.” But I’ll always keep you updated and in the loop.

Everything has a category. Some of the most common might be:

• Move it to the new house
• Put it in accessible storage
• Put it in long term storage
• Sell it (consignment, Craigslist, etc.)
• Donate it

But then there are the things that surface like:

• Ship this back to Granny in New Hampshire
• Return it to friends
• Give these outgrown kids’ clothes to my friend who has kids that are younger than mine.

We will go through and determine your categories so the sorting becomes much less daunting.

I’ll bring boxes and materials for this. So, with our newly determined categories, we’ll sort and purge to your heart’s content – and everything will have a place to land.

We will take photos and catalog anything going to storage (wherever you decide) so that when you can’t remember what’s in there (and it will happen) – then you can go to your catalog and browse.
And if you store things at the moving company storage facility, we can simply email them a photo of anything you want to get out, and they’ll pull it and bring it (currently limited within the LA area)

One of the L.A. moving companies I work with will actually take the donations (that we’ve very clearly marked) at the end of the move day, and drop them off at an under-privileged children’s facility – and then send you a tax-deductible receipt! It doesn’t get much easier.
In San Francisco (or if you’ve already picked a moving company), I can still arrange for your donations to be picked up, and have a receipt sent to you.

Before the move day, we will go through and tag everything in the house to direct the movers as to where it will go in the new place. This is especially important if the rooms don’t translate directly between the house you’re leaving and the new house.
I’ll also provide you with the Creative Moving “Cheat Sheet” that I wrote myself based on over 20 years of experience. This will tell you everything you can do the night before the move to make it much easier on yourself in the transition, and also easier for the movers to do what they need to do on the big day.
People have told me this is invaluable. Just sayin’ …..

We can provide a full-service pack or a partial pack, depending on your needs (and the volume of household goods in your house). Sometimes it makes more sense for us to pack and keep track of the essentials – what I refer to as the “Creature Comforts” – and then let the movers pack the rest of the house. Other times, we’ve packed the entire house.
Once I’ve done a walk-thru in your house, I will recommend what I think is best for your situation. But whatever you decide, we’ll make it happen.

I’ll be there on move day to oversee the last minute packing and loading of the truck. The goal will be to have things loaded into the truck in such a way that they come out at the new house in the best order for us to start putting it back together as quickly as possible. And that’s exactly what we’ll do.

Unpacking is all about managing the debris (boxes, crunch paper, etc.) and I love this part for some reason. If the debris isn’t managed well, things are actually more likely to break in the unpacking than in the transport.
We will get things out, visible and safe on surfaces, then clear the debris before handling these things too many times.
We’ll unpack the essentials (your “Creature Comforts”) first, then work our way out to the things you don’t use as often.
We’ll stage an (out of the way) area for the boxes after we’ve flattened them and the crunch paper after we’ve contained it. We’ll stack the flat boxes in nice, neat stacks in that area for easy removal at the end of the unpack.

This is the part where we make it not only function in the most efficient way, but we also make it pretty.
When you’ve been asking, “Is this the fun part?” for the entire duration of the move… this is finally it.
This is the fun part because it’s the part where we begin to transform your house into a home. And who doesn’t love to watch that happen?

Since we’ve now got all those nice neat stacks of flat boxes and crunch paper contained in the staging area, this becomes an easy task of loading all that out of there.
You have the option of keeping any of the boxes that you want. We will take away any that you don’t.
And then as we drive away, you’ll be able to wave good bye to us from the front porch of your beautiful, new home!