Once you make the informed decision to pack up your home by yourself, you’re most certainly going to adapt the room-by-room packing strategy for ultimate efficiency. And when you do, the house packing process will inevitably take you to the bathroom as well.
At first, the task of packing bathroom items for moving sounds pretty straightforward but… it’s never that simple, is it? While it’s true that packing your bathroom may not be as challenging as packing your kitchen for a move, it’s still far from being merely a walk in the park.
Below you’ll find the top 3 reasons why packing a bathroom for moving is not as easy as you might think. However, the major focus here is to learn the best way to pack bathroom items for moving – practical advice on how to complete this particular job as quickly and safely as possible.
Why packing a bathroom is harder than you think
Here are the three major reasons why you may find packing your bathroom to be more challenging than you initially thought:
- Breakable items. While most bathroom items will be non-breakable (mostly plastic containers of all types), there will be a number of breakable things in there too – glass bottles, glass flasks, and even glass jars containing various hair care products, body care products, toiletries, and so on.
- Potential spills. Most bathroom items will have liquids in them, so the risk of possible spills during the transportation phase remains high. Read on to learn how to use special packing techniques to prevent any types of spills that can make things really messy as a result.
- Good timing. When do you pack your bathroom items? The timing of packing your bathroom for moving should be impeccable. And here’s the issue: you can’t pack up your bathroom stuff too early simply because you use that room all the time. But if you leave packing the things in your bathroom for the last possible moment, then you may not have the time to pack them safely enough. Ideally, you’ll leave the task of packing bathroom items for the evening before Moving day.
What to Pack Last When Moving House
Sort out your bathroom items
The very first step when packing a bathroom for a move is to sort out all the things found in that room. Why? It’s simple: some of those bathroom items won’t be worth packing and moving to the new home.
In other words, the sorting task will help you identify what to take and what to leave behind. And this, in turn, will save you tons of precious packing time as well as valuable storage space in the new home’s bathroom.
Check all cupboards, cabinets, drawers, and shelves in your bathroom. Then, sort out all those items into these major categories:
- Toiletries such as body care products such as shampoos, conditioners, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, and so on.
- Shaving accessories such as razors, foams, brushes, lotions, and so on.
- Small electric appliances such as a hair dryer, electric shaver, and so on.
- Makeup and cosmetic products.
- Towels, bathrobes, and linens.
- Cleaning supplies.
- Prescription medication (usually found inside the medicine cabinet).
Some bathroom items may not fit in any of the above categories, so you can just place them into a MISC pile, waiting to be assessed closely in the next step.
10 Things to Remember to Do When Moving
Purge all unwanted bathroom stuff
You should always get rid of any items that you don’t plan to use in the future. Known as purging, the idea is to reduce the number of things for packing to their absolute minimum so that you can save tons of packing time and cut the moving costs as a whole.
The same purging principle applies to your bathroom items. Why would you waste both your time and money to move things that you won’t ever use again in the future? It makes no sense.
So, here are some practical tips that will help you know which bathroom items to keep and which ones to discard prior to packing.
- Toiletries. Go through your toiletries and throw away any tubes or bottles that are either empty or almost empty. Remember that you should not waste any time packing and moving hair and body care products that are simply not worth the effort.
- Makeup and cosmetics. Inspect all your cosmetic products and discard the ones that have already expired or become useless with time. If you have any cosmetics that you have never used, then consider giving them away as long as they are still within their expiration period.
- Appliances. Look for small bathroom appliances that are not functioning well or ones that happen to be duplicates. The approaching house move is the perfect time to let go of household items that are no longer worth moving from one home to another.
- Towels and bathrobes. Discard any bathroom towels and bathrobes that are in bad condition (too worn out, mostly) and should be replaced soon enough. However, don’t throw them away just yet – instead, use them as padding materials when packing fragile items in cardboard boxes.
- Cleaning supplies. Professional movers will not move any cleaning supplies because the latter are considered to be hazardous substances. And unless you’re moving just a short distance away, then you shouldn’t pack and move any cleaning products across the country either. So, you’d be better off disposing of the cleaning supplies you haven’t used until Moving day.
- Medications. Don’t forget to go through your medicine cabinet and inspect each and every medical product in it. Dispose properly of the medications that have expired, have missing labels, or have changed some of their properties. Also, discard any medications that you just don’t need anymore.
How to Pack Fragile Items for Moving
Pack your bathroom items for moving
Now that you are left only with the bathroom items that make sense to be packed up and transported to the new home, it’s time to learn the best way to pack a bathroom for moving.
Prepare a bag of bathroom essentials
The ideal of packing a bag with the most essential bathroom items is simple enough – you’re going to need those things right after you move into the new place. However, your regular household belongings may not have been delivered yet so you’ll have easy access to absolute necessities such as a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of shampoo, shaving accessories, makeup, and so on.
So, get a tote bag or a small cardboard box and fill it up with the most essential bathroom items. However, you shouldn’t do this too early – it’s best to complete the task on the morning of the move-out day itself.
How to Pack an Essentials Box When Moving
Pack bathroom liquids very carefully
The right way to pack a bathroom is to make sure that all full or half-full containers with liquids of some sort won’t leak during transport. In fact, any leaks or spills of such bathroom products can lead to a great mess, so here’s what you should do to avoid it:
- Open a container with any liquid inside that’s been already used.
- Position a piece of plastic wrap on top of its open part.
- Screw down or push down its cap or lid to close it securely.
- Place the bottle into a plastic bag and seal the bag well using tape.
Ziploc bags are ideal for this purpose.
This way, you will eliminate the risk of accidental leaks during the move. But even if it somehow happened, the liquid would be contained within the plastic bag without a chance of creating a mess.
Pack up your toiletries
As you can guess, your toiletries will be safe in your toiletry bag. But if you don’t have a toiletry bag or if you do have one but it’s not enough, then you can use a small cardboard box to hold your various toiletry items.
Make sure you wrap each toiletry item in clean wrapping paper and then add a sheet of plastic wrap before you transfer it into either its toiletry bag or the cardboard container.
8 Common Packing Mistakes to Avoid When Moving
Pack your towels and bathrobes in large boxes
There’s nothing complicated here, just pack your voluminous bath towels and bathrobes in large cardboard boxes.
However, keep in mind that unless your towels, bathrobes, and various linen items are brand-new, you should consider using them as padding materials inside boxes that contain highly fragile items.
Pack all medications into your essentials box
After the sorting out step, you should be left only with the medications that are really worth taking with you. So, pack them up in your essentials box and keep them close to you at all times.
Wrap breakable bathroom items in bubble wrap
If you happen to have any breakables in the bathroom – small mirrors or any other glass items, for example, then be sure to wrap those delicate items in soft packing paper first and then into one or two layers of bubble wrap for ultimate protection.
Label your bathroom boxes correctly
When you’re done packing up your bathroom items for moving, don’t forget to label the boxes correctly so that you don’t lose any precious time opening random boxes after the move.Write the content and destination room (BATHROOM) on two sides of each cardboard box.
