Overwhelmed and sweating profusely, I was hauling boxes as fast as I could from the moving van into our new house just outside of Boston. Only a day ago, Diana and I had left our home in central Kentucky, cruising over the mountains of West Virginia and through New York City to join the massive river of holiday traffic heading up Interstate 95 into New England for the Fourth of July.
For Diana, it was a new and scary adventure, saying goodbye to family, glistening glasses of sweet tea and horses. She’d grown up in Kentucky. For me, it was a homecoming after eight years of school and work in the Bluegrass State, and I was in a hurry. I dug into the boxes to find some shorts and a t-shirt, eager to hit the road again to join my family for our traditional Fourth of July festivities in New Hampshire.
Despite her qualms, I persuaded Diana to leave the heaps of boxes behind and set off for the lake. She wanted to get her new home organized, but I wasn’t about to miss a family celebration. We managed to pull it off, but the stress of doing too much lingered for weeks.
I learned an important lesson that summer. Moving is a major life event, so stressful and exhausting that it requires far more time and energy than you can imagine. Don’t underestimate either.
At Furniture Consignment Gallery, we are seeing the busiest moving season since we opened our doors in 2005. Our phones are ringing off the hook with frantic requests from homeowners who want to consign furniture – now!
Many of them failed to budget the time and energy necessary for a stress-free move. Here’s one example: “If you want this sofa,” one homeowner pleaded over the phone, “you’ve got to get it out of the house by Monday.” His call came in late on a Friday.
Other homeowners have a more imperial attitude towards the logistics of moving. One woman had sold her house and had seven rooms of furniture to send to FCG. We called her, assuming she was as eager as we were to pick up her furniture and display it in our showrooms.
“How about Monday?” we proposed. “No,” she said firmly. She had a dress fitting. Tuesday was out because of her son’s graduation. Wednesday the dog groomer was coming. Thursday, a hair appointment. Friday was impossible because she needed a day to herself. And the closing date was the following Tuesday.
I finally asked if I could be candid. “You are moving, ma’am,” I said. “This is a major change for your family and it must be your highest priority. We can’t agree to a schedule so tight that we have only ten minutes to remove your furniture before you hand the keys to the new buyer.”
I learned my lesson during that first move to Boston. I don’t remember the fireworks or the hot dogs at the lake that Fourth of July, but I do recall coming home weary and waterlogged to an empty house stacked high with boxes. For weeks afterward, we suffered the frustrations and inconvenience of our own disorganization.
So when it’s your time to move, make it your top priority. Clear your calendar. Plan ahead. Dedicate more time than you might imagine to the job and, lastly, slow down! FCG is ready to help. Just don’t tell us that grooming the dog is more important than scheduling your move.