Tag Archives: packing

My Life in Boxes

1 Comment

I think the title says it all.

I started packing boxes about 6 weeks ago – a little bit at a time but the effort has really ramped up in the last week as the removalist deadline approaches – Friday is the big day.

Today we loaded the final few things onto the ute and took it to a friend’s place to store it until we are ready to leave Queensland in about 6 weeks.

Meanwhile, back to the boxes. We had packed boxes stacked up in no fewer than 4 different rooms so this afternoon GMan decided that it would be a good idea to put them all together downstairs in the garage.

This is the result!

And another view.

In other news, I received a notification from WordPress overnight to let me know that this is the 12th anniversary of Organised Castle. I must admit that I never imagined I would still be writing this 12 years later. My sincere thanks to all of my readers over the years. I have made some really special friends through the blog, too. Don’t forget to join the Facebook group of the same name if you would like to interact more and meet other like-minded readers.

My blog has been with me through some interesting times and probably none more so than our impending relocation. So, strap yourself in and come along for the ride.

A Week Later

Leave a comment

The last week has slipped by while we have been occupied with packing.

Our primary focus has been sorting, cleaning and packing up the contents of the garage and workshop.

Most of the big items will be moved by the removalists but GMan has packed quite a bit into the ute as we will be driving both cars to our destination and it seems somewhat pointless to take an empty vehicle.

Although we will not be leaving Queensland for about 6 weeks, the packing of the ute need to be finalised before the beginning of next week as it will all be relocated to a friend’s carport when we leave this house.

An important consideration was making sure that everything was covered and secured for the impending trip. After careful consideration, we decided to buy a new waterproof tarpaulin to cover the contents. There is no risk of it flapping or blowing off as it is securely tucked under the heavy boxes at both ends as well as being tied to itself with the ropes going right underneath the entire contents of the ute. The tie-down straps over the tarpaulin then anchor everything.

Kicking Goals

1 Comment

For several weeks I have felt as though we have been juggling various aspects of our house sale and relocation without making much progress on anything.

That is not entirely true but now everything is beginning to fall into place. I mentioned last week that we have an unconditional contract for the sale of our current home.

We have also made an offer, which has been accepted, to purchase a property in Maldon, Victoria. The contract should be signed within the next couple of days. This will give us a firm date for when we can move into our new home.

Meanwhile, we have done lots of jobs – large and small.

  • Packed more boxes
  • Held a garage sale
  • Bought a tarpaulin to cover the items we will be transporting in the ute
  • Booked a pre-travel service for the ute
  • Bought a lock mechanism for the toolbox
  • Researched a hands-free phone holder for the ute (no bluetooth)
  • Finalised our accommodation arrangements for the remainder of our time in Queensland
  • Planned our road trip from here to Victoria.

Even though the majority of our focus is on the house sale, purchase and relocation, we have still found time to enjoy some recreation. Tomorrow evening we are going to enjoy some live theatre as we attend a production of David Williamson’s play, Family Values. I am really looking forward to that.

Countdown – 4 Weeks

Leave a comment

It is now exactly 4 weeks until the removalists collect our worldly possessions and pack them into a container to be freighted interstate.

This is both exciting and scary as I look around and see what still remains to be done. On the up side there are now 31 cartons packed and sealed. One of today’s projects was packing up the bottles of wine. I collected several cartons from our local bottleshop which made the job fairly easy.

I have also begun to tackle the kitchen. Most of what I have in the kitchen is used fairly regularly so I am loathe to pack too much just yet. However, I di manage to almost fill a carton with plastic storage containers, some platters and random things like icecube trays.

The pile is definitely growing and I even have a couple of completely empty cupboards.

Meanwhile, I am making baked potatoes for dinner. This is fairly unremarkable apart from the fact that I am doing them in the airfryer for the first time whereas I have previously used the slow-cooker. I will let you know how they turn out in a future post.

Let’s Talk Packing

Leave a comment

I guess you thought from the title that I meant packing up an entire house.

No, just planning for a 4 night trip away. However, it will be to an area of distinctly inconsistent weather but it seems to be bordering on the cooler side (for summer) at the moment.

Two pairs of shoes.

A dress which can be worn with or without a cardigan.

Two pairs of trousers – emerald green linen pants and a pair of white slim-fit pants.

Two 3/4 sleeve tops.

Lightweight black pullover and cardigan.

White cotton shirt.

Short sleeve top.

Two scarves that will add both warmth and interest.

This is to cover predicted temperatures from 9C to 29C but mostly between about 15C and 22C.

It is interesting to note that the majority of the items were opshopped. The leather shoes were new last summer and one scarf and one top were bought new several years ago. The other scarf and cardigan were inherited from my mother. I made the white shirt from fabric that was given to me.

Packing Priorities

Leave a comment

We now have a contract for the sale of our home. While the contract is still conditional for a couple more weeks, it is time to really start moving forward with preparations for our move.

I have been sourcing previously used packing boxes and today I packed up 9 boxes of books from the bookshelves in our office/library area.

With a little over 7 weeks until moving day most of my focus is going to be on preparing for the big day and blog posts will mostly reflect that over the coming weeks. I will cover various aspects of how we handle the preparation.

It is 17 years since our last move. We have spent much longer in our current home than anywhere we had lived previously. However, we have decluttered and simplified during that time and it will be interesting to see how that impacts the moving process.

When we came here both of our daughters had left the family home but only relatively recently so we still had quite a lot of possessions that related to them but that is no longer the case.

More information on our future plans will unfold over the next few weeks.

Packing Up

2 Comments

It is a little over 2 months since I first mentioned that we had listed our home for sale. After almost 3 months on the market (including the Christmas and New Year period), we are close to finalising the sale.

Although we will have professional removalists who will pack all of the breakable items, there is no good reason why I cannot pack up things like linen, clothes, sewing fabrics and books. However, packing up an entire house in a few days is not my idea of fun, even if our possessions are relatively minimal.

So, I have begun to pack some non-essential and rarely used items. I have sourced various boxes as well as some plastic crates.

At the moment the packed boxes are stacked in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom.

I also used suitcases to pack some of our out-of-season clothes. This made sense since the suitcases need to be relocated so they might as well be filled with clothes.

I intend to do something towards packing each day or two so that I can spread it over a few weeks and it is not too onerous.

In the next couple of days I will be emptying all of the good crockery, glasses and serving platters out of the sideboard. This has been sold and will be picked up at the end of the week.

New to Me

Leave a comment

Sometimes things are just meant to be.  A couple of weeks ago my mother told me that had some casual clothes – mostly tshirts which were now surplus to her requirements.

In the spirit of my relatively streamlined wardrobe and a lack of need, I refused most of them.  However, this one caught my eye.

2017-10-10 01

I had no intention of rushing out to buy a pink and white striped rugby top but when I saw this in the pile I simply fell in love with it.  This top is very lightweight and perfect for our generally mild weather for about 6 months of the year.

After wearing  it for a couple of days when I first received the top, I washed and ironed it.  While ironing it, I noticed that there was only one button on the placket.  The button was white and I searched my collection of numerous white buttons but could not find any suitable ones but discovered that I had 2 pink buttons that were the right size.

When I was planning what to pack on our upcoming trip to the UK I decided to include this top.  Even though it is quite light, it is loose enough to wear a thermal top underneath it and with the addition of a warm jacket I would be quite snug when out and about.

Even though this was an unplanned addition to my wardrobe, I am confident that it will  be perfect for my needs and get plenty of wear.

Savvy Spending

4 Comments

Today was my day off and I had arranged to meet some friends at the coast.  We had morning tea and a long chat in a park and it was after 1pm by the time I headed off.  I had planned to use the trip and petrol consumption wisely by incorporating a visit to East Coast Fabrics.  I am regularly disappointed by the range and quality of fabrics available at Spotlight and Lincraft so when I heard advertisements for East Coast Fabrics on the radio recently, I made a mental note to check them out.

2015-02-11 01
Since I am working through my stash of existing fabrics I am loathe to buy too much so I was fairly restrained.  I bought these two pieces to make some more skirts.  The mint green piece is linen and the other is a lightweight denim.  The fabric plus a zip for each skirt cost $18.91 which I think is pretty good for two skirts.  I will be using the same pattern that I used for this skirt I made recently.

003
I am planning to take these skirts when we go to Singapore in September.  I have worked out which tops I will wear with them.  There is this one that I made a few weeks ago.

2015-01-03 01I have chosen another three tops.

2015-02-11 02
My thoughts are that all of the tops will go with the denim skirt, all except the yellow can be teamed with the green skirt and the striped skirt can be worn with either the yellow or white tops.

I plan to add 2 pairs of sandals, a pashmina, bathers, sarong, hat, fabric shoulder bag and umbrella.  A pair of pyjamas and some underwear and I will be set for pretty well anything that a week in Singapore can throw at me.

What do you think?

Project 333 – 3 In, 6 Out

4 Comments

It is now 5 weeks since we arrived home from our trip to the UK and Ireland.  Those of you who followed my travel blog will know that I travelled fairly lightly and had 6 tops earmarked to go to the charity bin at the end of the trip. In this post you can see the 3 tops (red, blue and black) and the 3 striped 3/4 sleeve tops that I had decided would need to go.  They were all pretty much past their use-by-date as they had faded, had small stains and the necklines were stretched and out of shape.  I wore them to death for the 6 weeks that we were away and was glad to see the back of them at the end of the trip.

I think I have enough short-sleeved and sleeveless tops in my wardrobe but the 3/4 sleeve ones will need replacing.  That will be a project before next autumn.  In the meantime I did buy 3 pieces on the weekend we arrived home.  I did not specifically set out to buy any of them.

The Duke and I went to Maleny to pick up a few groceries and I decided to take a look in a small boutique.  I found this dress which is 100% cotton, lined and cool and comfortable.  The fact that it is black and white is an added bonus.

2014-10-26 01
Next, we wandered across the road to a recycle boutique where I struck it lucky.  This blouse is also cotton (with a touch of spandex) and I don’t think it had ever been worn.  I discovered why that was probably the case when I tried it on.  The top button was at the level of the bottom edge of my bra!  It was an easy matter to make another buttonhole and add a button.  Also, black and white!

2014-10-26 02
Finally, I found a lovely stretch lace waterfall cardigan by Mela Purdie.  This was also in the recycle boutique and a steal at $35 when it would have been around $250 when brand new.

2014-10-26 03
I am really pleased to have found these pieces and feel that they are all worthwhile additions to my wardrobe.