Plan before you move furniture
By Staff
Michelle Blaylock, Mom's Corner
I love moving furniture. OK, so I don’t love moving it, but I love changing the house around.
Unfortunately, my poor husband doesn’t — come to think of it, neither do my kids. Nevertheless, they have learned to work with me since, “If Momma ain’t happy; ain’t nobody happy” as the saying goes. I also love to do it during this time of year.
I guess it’s kind of like “fall” cleaning. You see the kids are back in school and it’s time to settle into a routine, clean the house, rearrange things.
I thought I would share some tricks I’ve learned about rearranging furniture. Some are very simple and are common sense, but I’ve found those are the easy ones to sometimes over look.
1. First of all, plan it! I know that sounds silly, but when you’re going to move furniture it’s also a good time to think about painting, or wallpapering too.
It’s also a good idea to “lay out” your room. It’s really the pits to move something you thought would fit somewhere only to discover you’re about an inch or so off!
A good way to avoid this is to draw a general diagram of the room on paper making every foot equal to an inch. This also works with the furniture. You can cut them out and move them around the diagram of the room.
There are also several computer programs that allow you to do that, after you input the dimensions of your room and furniture.
If you’re working on a home remodeling project, there are also programs that work for those types of projects as well.
2. Take the time to thoroughly clean the space as you’re moving furniture.
It’s a great time to wipe down walls, clean behind heavy furniture, and even shampoo carpet.
However, be very careful if you do shampoo the carpet; setting furniture on wet carpet can damage both the carpet and the furniture easily! I recommend giving the carpet time to dry completely before moving the furniture in. This is a great time to touch up paint or wallpaper.
3. This is also a great time to rapidly sort through all the extra stuff that has accumulated in the space since the last time you rearranged the furniture. For example, have you caught up on those old magazines yet? If not, consider getting rid of them.
4. OK, so now you’re ready to physically move that furniture. Get help! I’m one of those stubborn people who usually won’t take the time to do that and usually pay with pulled muscles and/or damaged furniture.
One time, when I was pregnant with our first child, I had a serious stupid moment and moved our large three-piece entertainment center across two huge rooms. Yes, I paid for that one. I couldn’t hardly get out of bed for three days because I pulled a muscle in my side!
In desperation, my husband introduced me to a wonderful piece of equipment called a two wheeled dolly.
I highly recommend it. It makes moving things so much easier! I’ve used it for boxes, book shelves, the girls’ doll house, a chest of drawers, and a dresser, to name a few. It really is handy.
I’ve also found it helpful to offer a bribe of . . . I mean, er. . .a positive reinforcement to get help at times--“If you’ll help me move this I’ll bake a batch of . . . (fill in the blank).
I hope these tips can help you. Do you have a handy tip to share? I’d love to include it in my column. Also, I’m collecting fall recipes for a future column. Please send me your favorite! You can write to me at: Mom’s Corner; P.O. Box 1496; Hartselle, AL 35640; or email moms-corner@juno.com
