2019 Spring Home & Garden

2019 SPRING HOME & GARDEN LINCOLN DAILY NEWS MAY 2, 2019 PAGE 9 In the kitchen, keep the basics that you use on a daily basis and start boxing the rest. The large roasters, big pasta pots, and probably the majority of your plates, glasses, cups, and other items can be packed well ahead of the move. In the last few days, don’t stress yourself preparing meals. Take advantage of the ready- made foods that are available at every grocer. While eating out on a daily basis is a lot of money, you can stay within your budget with carefully selected items that can go in the microwave or on a slice of bread. In the bathroom another favorite hack is cling wrap! As the time to move approaches, you have to pack up the jars and bottles in the bathroom. To help keep them from leaking or spilling, remove the caps, cover the opening of the jar or bottle with cling wrap, put the cap back on. Cling wrap, is a great way to keep your drawer organizers organized. For example if you use a silverware tray for your flatware, wrap the tray in two or three layers of cling wrap, drop them in the moving box and when you unpack, cut off the wrap and shove your organizer into its new drawer. Start as soon as you know you are moving collecting those boxes. While grocery stores are a great place to start asking for boxes, there are other places as well. Check with local retailers about what they do with their boxes and see if they will save you a few. Also, offices. The boxes that reams of copy paper come in are great for moving. Here’s a local tip for you as well. Lincoln City Clerk Peggy Bateman says that they get big boxes and they have them tucked away in a store room, so stop in there for sure. Packing materials are sometimes a big challenge. In this day and age, there are fewer newspapers, so grabbing up those products has gotten a bit more difficult. So, here’s a hack from your linen closets. How many towels do you actually need? Keep out what is necessary and the rest of those towels use to wrap up your delicate items such as glassware and dishes. You can do the same thing with spare pillowcases, sheets, and blankets. The larger pieces are good for covering and cushioning furniture during the move. If you are moving from a smaller place to a larger one, then you have the advantage when it comes to the days following the move. As you move, bring in your furniture and put it where it will live for the foreseeable future. But, for example, don’t set up the spare bedrooms. Leave the furniture tucked along your walls, and as you come into the house with all those boxes, you can take a good number of them directly to those spare rooms. Take your kitchen boxes to the kitchen, bath to bath, and of course the essential items you need in the bedrooms or home office area. The rest of it, keeping out of sight is much nicer for the unpacking process. Remember, unpacking is a chore and it takes time. Having your new house messed up with boxes and bags is going to make it harder for you to envision where you want to put things, and increases stress. Decorating your home is like creating a painting, you are much better CONTINUED u