How do you pack your garage?
This can be a little bit different for everyone, depending on what type of person you are. For some people, the only thing that goes into their garage is their cars. For other people, their garage is so stuffed that there is no room for your cars. If you are somewhere in between those two extremes, then these tips should help you.
Gas Powered Items: If you have a lawnmower, chainsaw, weed eater, or other gas powered items in your garage, the very first thing you will want to do is drain them of their gas or other flammable fluids. Not only would you not want them to leak and contaminate all of your other household items with gasoline, but it also is a huge fire hazard and most likely against the terms of your rental truck. For anything with a cutting edge you will want to guard it or sheath it so it does not damage your other items. Remove all of the accessories and place them in boxes of the appropriate size.
Tools: Make sure that all of your smaller tools are secured into their toolbox if you have one. Once they are in, make sure that all drawers are latched or locked if you can. If it does not have latches, you should wrap the tool box in moving wrap so that it does not come open in transit. If you do not have a tool box, you will want to pack your smaller tools into a small box or a book box due to their weight. You can gather larger tools, such as shovels and rakes, together and wrap them with moving wrap.
Other Items: If you organized your garage as we advised in this garage organization post, then you are ahead of the game. All of those boxes and containers should already be packed and ready to go into the truck. If you aren’t quite so organized, then first you will need to categorize your items. Once you have them categorized, stick to 2-3 standard sizes of boxes or containers to make them easy to stack. Use a lot of packing paper or other padding for items that are fragile. Once it is all packed make sure that you have clearly labeled the boxes.
Vehicles: How to pack your car may sound like silly question at first, but if you do not have someone else to drive your car or cars, you will need to get it to your new home somehow. You can get an auto transport from U-Haul and tow your vehicle behind your U-Haul truck. It is important to remember not to actually pack things in your car though. The weight for towing your vehicle is calculated based upon its empty weight.
Packing your garage is usually quite different from the items you are packing in the rest of your home. Hopefully this post will help you pack and move some of the more unique items you might be keeping in your garage. For everything else, this month we will have a “How to Pack” post for you on the different rooms in your home every week, so come back next week and check it out. Take a look at our previous post: “How to Pack: The Bedroom”.
Do you have any tips that made packing up your garage easier? How organized do you keep your garage? Please share in the comments below!
