6 Things to Consider Before Moving to a New Home

Whether you are moving into new construction, or just moving into a home that is new for you, relocating can be burdensome - unless you know the tricks. Here are 5 things to consider before you start moving:

1. Preparation

Make the moving process significantly simpler by starting a to-do list. It may seem like a no-brainer to relocate - until you arrive and your new place has no power, or you can't find your birth certificates. Then you will see how important a list can be to the process.

2. Utilities

Nothing is worse than moving to a new home and being in the dark. The power company, cable or internet services, or even gas and water, could take several days to get your utility ready. In the meantime, you would have to live without it - unless you remembered to schedule ahead. Not only does this prevent you from forgetting, but it also allows you to have what you need in your new home while you are still moving in.

While you are at it, change your address so that your mail will follow you in a timely manner. You will need your new address for the utilities, so it only makes sense to update your address at the post office while you are getting your utilities in order.

3. Organizing the Move

Besides the moving into a house checklist, you will also want your other important documents bundled together for safe-keeping during the move. Consider a fire-proof safe for things like birth certificates, social security cards, insurance documents, and other important information. Mark the outside of your box with the words 'personal' 'sensitive' or some other keyword that lets you know what's inside the box. Don't forget photos of your valuables, jewelry, and expensive computers for insurance purposes. These photos need to be placed with the other important documents.

4. Color Codes

Using color-coded boxes (yellow for the kitchen, black for the bathroom, etc.) will save you time when you start sorting through boxes for things you need for a new house. Put all of the same color boxes in the same room. That way you can unpack bedroom items in the bedroom, kitchen items in the kitchen, and so forth.

5. Shipping

Depending on how far you go, or what you are transferring, you may decide that shipping is your best option. Make sure you purchase insurance so that if your items get damaged, they can be replaced. It is also important to note that some shipments may not arrive at the same time. Fragile glassware, art objects, and delicate vases may be shipped separately to avoid being damaged.

6. Foods

If you are shipping perishable items to your new home, the packaging is key to how your foods arrive. To avoid spoilage, leakage, and damage, make sure your air-tight cold boxes or thermal boxes are scheduled to be delivered and picked up in a reasonable amount of time. What good does it do to wrap and ship perishables perfectly if they are not picked up in a timely manner?

When you decide to purchase or move to a new home, making a list and doing some simple organizing will make the transition go smoothly.

Cost-Effective Ways to Save Money and Energy This Winter

The wintertime can wreak havoc on your checkbook if you're not prepared. While you know that you'll be spending an arm and a leg on heating expenses during the cold season, there are some things that you can do to lower your costs. To help you out, we're going to share our most cost-effective ways to save money on energy costs during this winter season.

Program Your Thermostat Effectively

Most people have a smart thermostat or at least a programmable one. One surefire way to save yourself some green in the cold winter months is to program different temperatures depending on the time of day. For example, you can drop the temperature 10 to 15 degrees during the daytime when no one is home. You can also drop it by that temperature at night to help save energy.

Get Your Furnace Serviced

One of the best things that you can do to save yourself a good chunk of change in the winter is to have your furnace serviced. This entails calling an HVAC expert who will come out to your home and evaluate the state of your furnace. They will lubricate motor fans and check belts and other components for wear. They will be able to alert you of any minor furnace repairs that should be done now before the dead of winter hits and the problem gets much worse.

Turn On Ceiling Fans

You're likely familiar with using ceiling fans in the summertime to assist with your air conditioning needs. However, the wintertime is also a great time to run your ceiling fan, just in the opposite direction. Your fan should be spinning clockwise in the winter months. This will bring cold air up towards the ceiling and naturally push the warm air towards the floor. This will make your home feel warmer.

Take Advantage of the Sunlight

If you've ever sat in front of a window on a sunny day, you know that the sunlight can provide an adequate amount of heat. Take advantage of that heat by opening up the windows of your house that face the sun. Try to let in as much sun as possible throughout the daytime as it will provide free heat for your home that you don't have to pay to produce.

Saving money on energy costs in the wintertime is all about identifying where you're losing it. From programming your thermostat to be more cost-effective to taking advantage of the natural heat that sunlight offers, there are many things that you can do. Your best bet is to perform multiple different methods to boost your energy savings this winter season.

Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Messy Closet

Closets are some of the most difficult parts of your home to clean and organize. You can find nearly anything in a cluttered closet, from decades-old clothing to documents that you forgot existed. If one of your goals this spring is to clean your closet and bring it back to a usable state, prepare yourself and keep yourself from becoming overwhelmed before you begin. Our spring cleaning tips for your messy closet will prepare you for anything you might find.

Take Small Steps

If your closet—or your child’s closet—has become less of a storage room and more of a landfill for miscellaneous objects, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed at the sight of it alone. Set smaller goals for yourself each day. These goals can include:

• “I want to be able to easily open the closet’s doors again.”

• “I want to see the floor.”

• “I want to be able to hang clothes again.”

• “I want to fill two trash bags.”

Starting small will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed, no matter how messy your closet is. You can sort the contents of the closet into piles and it might seem messier than before—but as you make progress, you’ll start feeling satisfied with the work you’ve done.

Sort Your Clothes

Take time at the end of each season to sort through your wardrobe. Keep the essentials that still fit and remove anything that no longer fits or that you don’t wear. It may be difficult to dispose of some clothing, but it’s necessary if you want to make room for new favorites. Donate clothes or reuse the material whenever possible to give your old favorites new life!

Use Organization Tools To Keep the Closet Clean

Once the closet is clean, your next goal is to keep it that way so you have less work to do in the future. Make it easier on yourself by organizing spaces for all the things you want to keep in the closet. You can place a small dresser in the closet for seasonal or situational clothes and utilize storage bins for other objects.

Setting yourself up for success is one of the most important spring cleaning tips for your messy closet so you won’t have to work as hard once it’s time to clean. Utilize your organization tools so you can accomplish the project quickly.

7 Reasons Why You Should Try Virtual Organizing

When you think of professional organizing, you probably envision a patient, energetic team that wears matching t-shirts and magically moves throughout your home sorting, editing, and systemizing everything to your heart’s desire. And, to be honest, you’re not wrong! Some of our days look like that, and when they do, we LOVE it.

Throughout the unexpected series of events that occurred within the past year, whether due to safer at home restrictions, household preferences, your distance to us, or maybe even simple scheduling availability, we offer virtual organizing services in order to still be able to schedule you in, no matter where you are in the world!

If you don’t know what virtual organizing is, what virtual organizing professionals can do, or you simply don’t see the value in it just yet, we’re about to open your eyes to the 7 reasons why you should definitely try virtual organizing.

Let’s dive in!

What Is Virtual Organizing?

Virtual organizing is the art of helping people create and maintain systems and processes using basic principles of organization–virtually.

Simply put, virtual organizing is you in comfy clothes in your house, and virtual organizing professionals on a phone or computer using applications like Zoom or Skype, that coach you through the process, offer follow-up resources and it all ends with you having a beautiful, functional space.

How Is the Work Carried Out?

In most cases, one-hour virtual organizing sessions are scheduled once or twice a week. The virtual organizer and client will collaborate to develop a strategy in order to achieve the client’s goals, very much like they would do during in-person meetings.

The virtual organizing professional guides the client through the session, at which time, the client will do the physical work, and the virtual organizer will be there as a helping hand that provides advice.

Virtual organizing is an ideal solution for those who are comfortable with technology, are self-starters, very motivated, and are able to work on their own to get the between-session assignments done.

1. A Virtual Organizer Will Motivate You

There’s nothing worse than wanting to do something, and just not being able to bring yourself to do it. You put everything else first and let your unfinished organizing projects linger in the background. As time goes on, human nature is to get overwhelmed, and so you close the door and ignore the piles.

By hiring a virtual home organizer, they can bring you out of your cluttered shell. They help you to open up those doors, and bring light back into your life through the motivation to ‘get stuff done’ they provide you with.

2. Poor Time-Management Doesn’t Matter

Sometimes, time can get the better of us. Often, you’ll find that you lose track of your day and will need to work in the evening when most organizers are done for the day. With virtual organizing, even an 8:00 pm appointment is possible.

As long as you’re able to get online, and of course, they are too, then you can go ahead and move one step closer to completion in your organizing journey.

3. You Don’t Have a Professional Organizer In Your Area

You may not have a professional organizer in your surrounding area, or, you might just need an organizer with a particular set of skills. Regardless of the reason, you can find virtual organizing just a quick Google search.

4. You’re Looking for Accountability or Support for Your Organizing Project

So you started organizing, but now, it seems that the whole process is on pause, and has been for months! This can happen for a multitude of reasons, and it’s completely OK!

When you hire a professional virtual organizer, they can help you get back on track and measure your progress. They are here to support you throughout your whole journey, and consistently help you move your organizing project forward, aiming for completion each and every week. After all, moving forward is the key to success - you just need somebody to keep hounding you to do so!

5. Not Comfortable With a Stranger In Your Home

Many people out there don’t feel comfortable with the thought of having a complete stranger in their home. It could be down to a contagious virus, because they have small children, a sick family member lives with them, or, maybe they’re a clean-freak and have some white carpet that they would like to stay white, which can only be achieved by having as few people in your home as humanly possible.

Regardless of the reason, anybody can invite a virtual organizing professional into their home, without actually inviting them into their home. It’s the perfect way to keep that white carpet white, and get some much-needed organizing done at the same time.

6. You Appreciate Convenience

Do you find that you're constantly having to change schedules? Do you stay up extra late at night, or do you rise early? When do you have the most energy to do physical work? Signing up for virtual organizing services means that you’re also provided with a bunch of conveniences along the way. They are always there to help you out, especially when you need them most.

7. You Prefer to be Comfortable

Want to know the very best thing that virtual organizing has to offer? It’s the fact that you can organize...in your pajamas! There is absolutely no need to dress up if an organizer won’t physically be entering your house. This means that the hair can go up, you can keep your sweats on, and not have a care in the world about what you look like.

In addition to this, virtual organizers allow you to be comfortable as they swing ideas back and forth with you. If you’re somebody who loves to see things from a new perspective, but not have the idea forced on you, then virtual organizing services are definitely what you need.

organizing makes perfect sense. If you’re somebody that can clearly picture themselves changing their whole environment through speaking to a fantastic virtual organizer, then the services we provide at House to Home Organizing are definitely for you.

We started House to Home Organizing with a belief that our client’s goals are the most important factor in the organizing process, and each day, we continue to transform the lives and environments of thousands through our virtual organizing professional guidance.

If you’re interested in learning more, click here to book your 15-minute phone consultation, and let’s get started!