Long distance moving is often an emotional and chaotic process, but sometimes a few wise words can bring us down from the ceiling in times of anxiety and change. Here, we’ve pulled together some of our favorite deep thoughts and helpful maxims for getting through a major relocation in one piece.
Moving demands a brave heart and a bold spirit. May these help you remember why you’re moving in the first place.
It matters where you are. The space we choose dictates the richness of the life we have and the quality of the characters who bump up against us.
-DeDe Wilburn Church
To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.
-Jerry Seinfeld
Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.
-Randy Pausch
Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.
-Unknown
If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.
-Seth Godin
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
-Joseph Priestley
Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
Any time there’s a major change, whether it’s going into a relationship, getting out of a relationship, moving to a new city, a death — that usually provides a catalyst for an explosion of creativity.
-Lucinda Williams
Try to be a person on whom nothing is lost.
-Henry James
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
-Helen Keller
Check out more tips for planning your move and move organizing advice from Moveline, a radically easier way to move.
So you’re moving long distance to Washington, D. C. but not quite ready to commit to permanent housing. Should you sign a lease from afar, or find a place to stay while you house hunt? Where do you start?
To help you with the search for a short-term–one month to three month–stay, we talked to a few people who have made this kind of move themselves and to a few experts in the short-term rental business.
Keep in mind, your choices for short-term housing will be determined by three factors: – how much you can pay, – how close to transportation you need to be, – how long you want to stay and what neighborhood you choose.
For help deciding on a neighborhood, we recommend Newcomers Handbook for Washington, D.C. by Mike Livingston.
When you’re searching for a place that’s out of town
Financial analyst Christian Miller, 32, found his D.C. short-term rental on Airbnb.com. He has the master bedroom in a two bedroom apartment in a rehabbed building on the U Street Corridor. He loves the “incredible sunlight, a balcony, a deck with a view and a gym in the building.” His rent is just under $2000 per month.
“I started my search in a panic, went to AirBnb, entered the zip code of the neighborhood where I wanted to be and the first place that came up turned out to be exactly what I wanted.”
Miller was in D.C. at the time so he was able to see the apartment before sealing the deal. Renters who live hundreds or thousands of miles away don’t have that option. For them, there’s Wegolook.com. Launched three years ago, the site has 7400 “local lookers” who will visit the property you’re considering– “we go look when you can’t.” For $59 you’ll get a basic report on what they find complete with photos and videos.
Wegolook can also check out properties on Craigslist (still the first place that people recommend when looking for short-term housing) or anything you find in the shared housing or sublet section of the classifieds of the Washingtoncitypaper.com. A recent click on shared housing on the paper’s site brought up a room in a house in NW with a 24-hour metro bus stop at the front door for only $400 per month. If you don’t see what you want, try posting your own ad in the “housing wanted” section.
Corporate housing and furnished apartments
These are fully furnished apartments managed and sometimes owned by companies that specialize in relocating people for large companies. Some are administered by huge corporations with properties that they own or rent in every major city. Execustay and Oakwood are two of the giants. Watch out for sticker shock with this option, though. Sharron Saunders, Global Communications Lead for Oakwood Worldwide advises, “Don’t be afraid to look outside the metro area. Several of our apartments are close to the metro and a short ride from the city.” An example: a one-bedroom in Arlington, VA, one Metro stop from D.C. where rents start at $99 per day.
Archstone is another furnished apartment option. They offer short-term apartments in D.C., Virginia and Maryland and pride themselves on “flexible leasing” for 2 – 12 months. An example: a 450 sq. ft. studio on 29th Street NW for $1550 per month.Georgetown apartment for rent via Attache
A smaller, more local version of this business model is Attache which rents properties in D.C. exclusively. Attache’s President, Tim Touchette, says that all you need to do is “bring your luggage and your laptop” to any of Attache’s 189 furnished apartments, and you’ll be resting comfortably in no time. Utilities are included and rents for a one-bedroom “hover around $3000.”
An example: a Georgetown one-bedroom in a newly renovated townhouse steps from M Street for $3250.
Finding a sublet in Washington, D. C.
Sublet.com is the logical place to begin. An example: a 2-6 month studio with a shared kitchen in Adams Morgan for $2050.
We also checked out ULoop, a site that lists sublets near college campuses and there are plenty in the D.C. area. Most of the apartments listed are for shares but there is a sublet category as well. A quick caveat: when we put in D.C. for a search a number of sublets came up but most had been rented. Can’t hurt to try.
Perhaps you need to find a roommate?
If you want to cut costs and don’t mind sharing space, go to the search sites roomster.com, roommates.com and roomiematch.com, which promises to help you “find a roommate without the spam, scams or scums.” Roomiematch claims that their average D.C. rent is $750 for a share in a two-bedroom apartment.
…or just a place to stay while you house hunt
For this, vacation rental sites are a great option. Two good sources for short term housing from one night to six months are HomeAway and VRBO (Vacation Rentals by Owner), sites where home owners post their second home or investment property. If you’re planning to take your family with you and need more than one bed, this is a great option. An example: Homeaway has a listing for a 2-bedroom row house that sleeps 6, a short walk to the White House, the National Mall and the zoo, for slightly under $2000 per week. About half that will get you a one-bedroom on the second floor of a townhouse in DuPont Circle. Listings usually include nightly and weekly rates but you can negotiate with the owner for a better rate for a longer stay.
No matter which way you go, D.C. is a great city. Once you get there, you’ll feel right at home. Hopefully, these resources will help you find a place to stay while you search for the home you really want.
Good luck!
Moving to DC? Let Moveline help. We’ll get you guaranteed quotes from the top DC movers, and assign you a Move Captain to manage your move.
Let’s face it: most of us have reached a point in our lives where we’re feeling the tug of responsibility for managing our carbon footprint. While moving, we purge our lives of unwanted stuff, and generate piles of trash, packing materials, and items we no longer want — and we’re never more aware of how much stuff we have, and how little we’ve actually used.
Luckily, the guilt isn’t inevitable. These days, it is possible to relocate with green living in mind, and according to a few of our past customers, some of the new options actually make it quite convenient to make earth-saving choices.
Here are our tips for how to make your next major move as eco-friendly as possible.
Reduce, reuse & recycle… your closet.
Staring down your wardrobe and wondering where in the world all those clothes came from, and why you haven’t worn half of them in a blue moon (or two)? Instead of packing up those wardrobe boxes and taking them to the next closet where they’ll just sit, unused, for eons, do a cutthroat audit. Donate old clothing to a local shelter or non-profit organization that could truly benefit from it. Then, take those worn-out kicks to a Nike dropoff location; they recycle any brand of athletic shoes — not just their own — into public playground surfaces and basketball courts through their Reuse a Shoe program.
Kick the cardboard.
If you’re moving locally, there’s no need to waste a metric ton of cardboard. These days, we have alternatives like EZ Bins in the greater New York area and Rent-a-Crate in 13 other locations around the US. Have plastic packing crates delivered and picked up whenever you choose, sidestep the guilt of killing all those trees, and skip the awful process of tearing down boxes and figuring out where to dispose of them properly. Even if you give cardboard boxes to someone who needs them for a move of their own, they’ll generally last four moves at best. Plastic bins last up to 500. Easy math.
Toss that tired tech.
Got a late-90s desktop monitor, a couple of decade-old Blackberries and random stereo equipment sitting around… and zero desire to haul it all with you to your new place? Send it to obsolescent tech heaven — i.e., recycle them — instead of relegating it to a sad, eternal landfill grave. This CNET article gives great tips on finding a reputable recycler for all your gadgets from days gone by.
Clean green.
This one’s as basic as it gets. Nontoxic, earth-friendly cleaning supplies are kinder to your skin and lungs, the groundwater wherever you are, and the environment in general, thanks to their recycled packaging and lack of sketchy ingredients. Consider brands like Seventh Generation, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day and, in some cases, good old-fashioned baking soda and water. Because sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.
Pick your place.
Moving long distance to somewhere that’s not, say, in the heart of Manhattan? If you’ve got some leeway in terms of choosing your new neighborhood, check its walk score and see how feasible it is to live relatively free of cars, cabs and public transport. Choose a spot higher than 90 for a super-walkable, bikeable (do people still rollerblade?) community. Both the earth and your blood pressure will thank you.
Check out more eco-friendly moving advice and packing tips from Moveline, a radically easier way to move.
Living in a space with an expiration date on it is kind of a funny thing. Let’s say you’ve relocated for a job, and your new employer is putting you up in short-term housing while you find a more permanent home to settle into. Maybe your old house sold faster than expected, and you can’t move into your new one yet –- or perhaps you’re just in town for a few weeks or months for an assignment or obligation, only to get the heck out of dodge once your time there is through.
Whatever the case, you’ve found yourself living somewhere that’s supposed to be your home for the time being, and yet with all the tacky hotel artwork and not-quite-creature-comforts, it feels like anything but.
Luckily, we’ve got a few easy and inexpensive ideas to make things a bit more comfortable during your stint in the in-between.
The Nose Knows
The quickest, cheapest way to trick your system into relaxing and feeling more at home is to manipulate the scent of your living quarters. If you had a favorite candle, room spray or reed diffuser in the last place you lived, by all means, reintroduce it in your new space. If not, spend a little time choosing a fragrance that you’re instantly drawn to when you smell it for the first time. Of our five senses, scent is the most closely linked to memory, and there really is a scientific foundation to aromatherapy. So stock up on a couple of soy candles or another form of home fragrance in a scent you can’t get enough of, and you’ve taken a simple first step toward personalizing your place.
Nothing Lasts Forever
Image credit: Blik
Maybe it started in the store window display industry, or maybe it somehow jumped the shark from explaining things on museum walls, but temporary wall art has begun an ascent toward widespread popularity in the past few years. Brands like Blik and Wallies offer affordable, temporary wall art in the form of vinyl decals with impermanent adhesive on the back. From a few simple wall stickers to add a bit of quirk all the way to an entire wall covered in an intricate pattern, it’s an artistic way to add some personality to an apartment that can be taken down in seconds with zero evidence left behind. With “wall graphics for the commitment phobic” (as Blik calls them) designed by Threadless, Keith Haring and more, you’re bound to find something cool that won’t leave a mark when you leave.
Live a Little
Image credit: Botany Factory
Nothing breathes life into a space (literally) like a little greenery, but you’re no longer limited to scary 1970s ferns and potted plants that look like they belong in your dear grandmother’s living room. Small herb gardens can pull double duty, giving your apartment a touch of green and your food a dash of flavor with a few small snips; hanging terrariums (like this one from Botany Factory) can fill up empty space and lend a calming, Zenlike sensibility to the place where you crash-land at the end of each day. Cactus plants and succulents require little maintenance and are great for those of us with little time and brown thumbs. For the more nurturing among us, plants requiring daily watering give us a sense of ritual and something, however little, to come home to and take care of. Few things are more comforting than that.
To thine own self be true
Like little kids with security blankets, we all have our talismans that give us peace. Whether it’s a favorite pillow, a set of framed photos, or even a particular color or motif that makes us smile, there’s no reason to keep it stuffed in a box or on hold for the next stop during a period of transition. Keeping them close can genuinely affect your happiness on a basic level, helping you stay connected to what always brings you joy. Choosing the five personal belongings most important to you — and keeping them with you in your temporary space — can go a long way toward making an intermission feel personal. Even if you pick up something new to match the wall colors or suit the climate wherever you might be, something singular but often used (like a cozy set of sheets or colorful shower curtain) can have a daily, yet meaningful, impact on your mood.
All in all, take a few steps to make sure you’re as comfortable as can be under the circumstances, and know that temporary housing is called that for a reason. If short-term strain equals long-term gain, just imagine how much fun you can have once you’ve finally settled into your next, more permanent home.
Check out more post move tips or interior design tips from Moveline, a radically easier way to move.
For some of us, moving is a bigger deal than it is for others. Whether it’s across town, across the country or across an entire ocean, we know we’ll be getting used to a new environment, new routines and new neighbors… but when it comes to our stuff, the endless litany of decisions about what to keep, what to take and what to toss can be a little overwhelming.
Since we’re well-entrenched in the world of relocating here at Moveline, we thought we’d offer some basic tips to ease the stress of the keep/take/toss conundrum and share a few resources while we’re at it.
Measure, measure, measure
Whether you’re moving from one similarly-sized space to another, upgrading your square footage or downsizing your living space, a square foot here may not equal a square foot there. Now, we’re not contesting the concept of math itself — it’s just that the dimensions of each room in your new home can provide challenges when it comes to arranging your furniture in a way that’s comfortable. So before you start figuring out whether or not that jute rug will clash with the tile in your new place, figure out if it even fits. Get your measurements down cold so you can plan ahead and avoid a lot of last-minute chucking on your move-in date. A helpful resource: this roundup of half a dozen floorplan tools compiled by our pals at Apartment Therapy.
Get inspired to upcycle, repurpose and reinvent.
Image credit: Cupcakes and Cashmere
While it’s fun (for some) to redecorate and dream up a whole new decor scheme to go along with the clean slate of a new home, what starts off as a lovely idea can quickly turn into an expensive and exhausting process. So, instead of tossing out your old belongings so you can run out and buy all new things, take a long, hard look at what you’ve got and consider its potential. The wealth of DIY tutorials and resources on the web is endless; you can transform a shipping pallet into a coffee table, update old suitcases into the world’s cutest nightstand… the possibilities go on and on.
A few great places to look online for inspiration: IKEA Hackers, Design Sponge and — for the utterly fearless DIY decorators — Instructables.
Happy hacking!
Leave a little wiggle room.
There’s a common misconception that a new living space has to be perfectly in order and impeccably decorated before guests should be welcomed, or before it can even feel like home. Truth? That’s ridiculous.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a great home. Ask any interior designer worth their salt what the foundation of great decor is, and they’ll all agree that it can’t just be snapped up from a showroom floor in one fell swoop. It takes time to cultivate the collection of objects and furnishings that make a space feel alive.
So, our biggest piece of advice: take your time, get creative and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Bring that couch, those shelves and that bedroom set you can’t live without, and resist that impulse buy on some easy chair that fills that empty space. Wait, if you can, until you run across things you absolutely have to own, whether you find them online or wander across it during a Saturday romp through a vintage market. Let your new home develop its personality as time goes by and let yourself settle into all its quirks. When you think about it, that’s half the fun, and you’ll thank yourself years down the road when you’re still enjoying those wise decisions you made in your own time, on your own terms. Soon enough, it’ll feel like home sweet home indeed.
Check out more packing tips and move organizing advice from Moveline, a radically easier way to move.
What are the odds of saving both money and the environment while moving twice within one month in a country in which you’ve never done it even once? Not high, you might assume. But you’d be wrong.
After living in Manhattan for a year to help launch a fellow TechStars company with origins in the Netherlands,
developer Klaas Pieter and his wife decided to move to Brooklyn in fall 2012 in an attempt to save money. While the cost-savings proposition turned out to be a bit more challenging than they thought when it came to rent prices, they managed to find a place and set up a move, using Moveline to streamline everything.
Ironically enough, after moving in the midst of Superstorm Sandy (like other Moveline customers) with absolutely no hitches, they realized the noise from the bar underneath their new place was too loud to sleep through at night, so within a month, they were moving again to another apartment nearby. Now, finally, they’re happy in their new home. And the help we were able to give them during both experiences was, according to Klaas Pieter, invaluable. “Not being from the U.S., we felt great having someone we could ask basic questions about moving…. things like tipping and packing,” he says.EZ Bins, an eco-friendly, reusable packing solution. Image credit: EZ Bins Facebook Page
An example of what he’s talking about: EZ Bins. The Move Captain who worked with Klaas Pieter recommended EZ Bins as an environmentally-conscious — not to mention physically practical — way to get his stuff from point A to point B (and, eventually, to point C). They’re rentable, water-resistant plastic moving containers that are dropped off and picked up before and after a move anywhere in the greater NYC area, eliminating the carbon footprint and headache-inducing mishaps generally caused by cardboard.
In the end, “we spared ourselves and the movers the agony of boxes falling apart, and we also (did our part to) save the environment,” says Klaas Pieter. Add to that the spared stress of comparing moving quotes and everything else that could conceivably go wrong during a double-move within the span of 30 days, and we’d officially call that a crisis averted. In fact, we’re pretty sure that — save a few nights living about a rowdy bar once they got there — this couple slept very well ‘til Brooklyn.
Check out more eco-friendly moving and packing tips from Moveline, a radically easier way to move.
Let’s be honest: the process of moving generally isn’t considered “fun,” “great” or “stress-free” by any means. Add a hurricane into the mix and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a true nightmare. But with a little planning and a lot of perseverance, the show can go on, even when it’s up against a force of nature.
That’s what happened in the case of Tim and Alaina, a couple we recently moved from Washington, D.C. (him) and Manhattan (her) to Chicago to live together earlier this year. What they didn’t realize as they were planning their move was the fact that Superstorm Sandy would be rather literally coming along for the ride. Luckily, though, the couple had a Move Captain in their corner.
We caught up with Tim to hear more about the experience. Here’s what he had to share:
Walk us briefly through your moving process before the storm reared its ugly head.
Moveline took almost all the work out of the moving process for my girlfriend and I. We had no idea how difficult and time consuming it could be to find the right movers at the right price, especially since we’d need the movers to pick up my girlfriend’s things in Manhattan, my things in Washington, DC, then schlep the whole lot of it all the way out to Chicago.
From start to finish, Moveline simplified the entire process for us. After creating our account, we set up an appointment with Moveline to take an inventory of our belongings, which we conducted via Facetime on my iPhone. The inventory process was quick, precise and extremely convenient (and Brittany, our Move Captain, could not have been more friendly). Then, using our inventory, Moveline shared it with the moving companies they work with to get us the best price. Once we accepted, Moveline stayed in touch with us throughout the process to ensure that we were completely taken care of.
That level of attentiveness is what really stood out, and made my girlfriend and I feel like there was someone who was really looking out for us and our belongings.
So… moving during a superstorm. Tell us about that.
We were (already) working within a very tight timeline to complete this move. There were so many variables like current lease agreements, responsibilities with work, new job start dates, etc., that required a lot of planning and coordination. But hurricanes don’t care about your plans.
Moveline set us up with what I can only imagine was the only company that would move someone the day Hurricane Sandy slammed the east coast. While Manhattan was shutting down in preparation for the storm, these guys were loading a 28′ truck. While people were shuttering their homes and hoping for the best, these guys were driving for over six hours down I-95, dealing with bridge closures, traffic, and blistering wind and rain along the way. They showed up to my place, and with a quick smile and hello, started loading up my things in the dark and the rain.
Coming from a military family, I moved a lot as a kid, and I have never, ever seen something like that before. True professionals, those guys.
What was your reason for moving?
Eight months ago during a trip up (from DC), I met a girl in a bar during a lumberjack-themed party in Manhattan. She spotted me and asked me to pull a sparkled ornament off of the ceiling (as I am a taller fellow) and, being a sucker for a pretty face, I happily obliged.
When I handed her the ornament, she took it, said, “You’d look prettier like this,” and rubbed the sparkles into my beard. I fell madly, deeply in love in that moment, and spent the next two months vowing to sun and stars that, one day, she would be mine. We started dating and, eight months later, decided to move to a new city together.
And move they did.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if you’re moving to a new home for a relationship, a career, or just a change of scenery – obstacles will present themselves in the middle of what’s already an inherently stressful situation. With services like Moveline’s, folks like Tim and Alaina can get on with their lives, even in the face of adversity, thanks to a bit of professional tenacity from people who care about getting the job done right.
Stories like this are the reason we do what we do. Life is stressful (and awesome and scary and great) enough without adding frustration and a few 80 mph winds into the mix. We’re happy to take the edge off and get you where you’re going in one piece, with your possessions all accounted for and your sanity intact. So, here’s wishing Tim and Alaina a very happy future together. Congrats on your move, guys! Cheers!
Learn more about how Moveline works.
Today marks the debut of a more modern Moveline. For the past few weeks, we’ve been hard at work on a redesign of Moveline.com, and we’re excited to share the progress with you all. Harrison Weber, fellow Virginian and Design Editor at The Next Web, wrote a quick review of the redesign and describes the “significant polish” that comes with the new look.
What’s new?
We have a new homepage that (we think) does a much better job of showing off the product and explaining what we do. Over the coming weeks, expect to see more content that will also help people understand the process and answer their questions.
As you may have noticed, the blog is also new. The new Moveline features a brighter palette and updated typography. We moved to a new platform called Jekyll that gives us greater control over how we create and render posts. For you guys, all you should notice is cleaner, more readable articles.
Most importantly, we’ve rebuilt the underlying grid of Moveline to be more responsive, which means Moveline is now more accessible across mobile and tablet devices. We still have a long way to go in making a seamless mobile web experience, but this redesign brings a huge improvement to browsing Moveline on the go.
Special thanks
In addition to our core product team, we had some help from talented designers to bring the new Moveline to life.
Our friend Rob Weychert defined the new visual style for the product and chose the new typefaces (Chapparal Pro, Freight) which we think are pretty slick. Anthony Irwin at Modea illustrated and animated our new homepage video. We can’t stop watching it.
Find something that’s broken?
Please tell us so we can fix it! Email us at support@moveline.com with a screenshot. The first 10 bugs submitted will receive a limited edition Moveline t-shirt from our Hurricane Sandy adventures.
Ready to move? Build your move inventory with Moveline, today.
A friend of mine just called with a nightmare Hurricane Sandy scenario: him and his girlfriend finally got back into her first-floor Hoboken apartment, and it was destroyed. Most of the furniture and everything on the floor was totally trashed – covered in filth from having sat in flood water for several days. There were, however, many things tha were still salvageable, which had been off the floor or in a loft, that needed to be moved about immediately, before mold ruined what remained.
He called me directly, and within 30 minutes, we had a crew from a high-quality NYC moving company lined up to arrive first thing tomorrow morning, and a storage unit reserved to hold the stuff until they can find a new apartment.
For the next two weeks, if you are in this or any similar emergency situation due to Hurricane Sandy, Moveline will be available to connect you to the moving and storage help you need. In addition to our standard guaranteed-quote product, we will also assist you in connecting with hourly crews, or just finding the cheapest place to rent a truck. When you identify your move as hurricane-related, we will also take any commission we would have earned on that transaction, and give it back to you as a discount, when applicable.
Please call our support line at (800) 579-0635 or email us at support@moveline.com for immediate assistance. The Moveline team is at your service.
Ready to move? Build your move inventory with Moveline today.
We’d like to share a quick announcement: our team has just raised a $1.5 million seed investment round to fuel our mission to redesig and simplify the customer moving experience and bring transparency to the industry. With these resources, we’ll be hiring new team members, adding to our web and mobile platforms, and expanding our operations to new cities.
After completing the TechStars NYC program in June, we saw tremendous interest from angel investors and venture capital funds who wanted to back Moveline. As a result, we were in the fortunate position to choose our investors and surround our team with incredibly smart people. Each of our investors are ready to roll up their sleeves and help us grow.
The fine folks at ffVC led our round. They were impressed by our work ethic, passion for product, and the promise of our business model. After speaking with founders across their porfolio, we were impressed by the firm’s reputation for being truly friendly and helpful to entrepreneurs as they scaled from being an upstart to a high-growth company that dominates its category. We’re pleased that as part of the investment, John Frankel, Partner and Founder of ffVC will be joining our board.
To add to the round, we looked for investors who:
- believe in our vision for the future of moving
- have firsthand experience starting and scaling companies
- focus on early-stage startups
Investing alongside ffVC are: Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Quotidian Ventures, David Tisch’s Box Group, 500 Startups, David Cohen, Josh Guttman, Bill Boebel, Rony Kahan, Jason Seats, David Calone, Thomas Wisniewski, and Paul Sethi.
We’re excited that with these new relationships and some fresh grease on the wheels, we’re picking up speed and carrying our momentum into expansion. It’s been a true honor to serve New Yorkers since launching in June, and we’ve been floored by the city’s response to Moveline. We can’t wait to share our product with the rest of you — we’re coming to your city as fast as we can.
Ready to move? Learn about how Moveline streamlines the process.