O' CRUD moving after 47 years

[Freightman]

We are moving close to the kids after 47 years in the same house. I am finding stuff I thought I threw away 30 years ago. breaking down all the loading presses and packing them up and allthe dies and haven't started on the lead yet.

[bpatterson84]

That sounds particularly awful, the thing nightmares are made of! Best of luck with the next few days!

[CraigOK]

Awful was the first thing that came to my head also. Good luck.

[FredBuddy]

In that time, we moved 8 times.

One end of the country to the other.

Rotsa ruck!

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

in my younger days (as an adult), I moved every 3 or 4 years. I come from a family with packratitous. Moving was good therapy. Now I've been in the house I'm currently in, since '93. I dread the thought of moving (or selling) 24+ years of accumulated stuff, so I feel your pain...and I recommend you sell as much as you can.
good Luck

[brass410]

from my own experience. you are embarking on the greatest scavenger hunt ever!!! the best part is there is no list to follow it's all finds! LOL best wishes for the move.

[Freightman]

In 78 years I have moved 6 times since I have been married 57 years I have moved only once so this is an experience. Since I am a gatherer and a horder it will be hard to throw away stuff I might in fifty years need.

[skeettx]

Frank!!!
WOW!!
Staying in town or moving out of town??
Mike

[bedbugbilly]

My wife and I just went through the same thing - moved from the house on the farm we lived in for 42 years in to town into a condo. We'd been planning on moving for ten years but life sort of got in the way and then the last eight years was not a good time to sell real estate. We had weeded things out somewhat but I had a shop full that i had to dispose of - fortunately was able to sell most of my tools and what I didn't sell I gave to young folks who could use them.

I'm a collector and accumulator as well! We're pretty well settled in the condo now but are still going through "totes" of things that "maybe we ought to save until we see whee we land". Since we spend the winters in AZ, I'm setting up my work and reloading area in the garage of the condo where I can work and look out the open garage door to enjoy the nice days here. In packing up my gun/reloading things, I began to realize just how much brass I had accumulated - you know - there is never enough and you don't want to run out or run short if there is a "shortage" of things - discovered I had accumulated dies, etc. for cartridges I don't reload but "might" - you know how that goes. I ordered a heavy steel legged workbench which seems to have been lost in transit so that is a delay - decided I had better inventory my molds and that was a mistake too - didn't realize how many I had actually accumulated so they will be getting weeded out sometime in the future.

Nope Freightman . . . it isn't easy making a move but we all seem to survive it if we look at it with a sense of humor. Hard to leave the old home for a new one but at my age, I long ago discovered that a house is just a house and a home is where you plant your feet with the wife whose been your love and best friend for many many years. And, you soon discover that "less is more".

Good luck with your move - you'll do just fine and pretty soon will be all settled in and you'll look back and wonder how you survived the move! LOL

[ghh3rd]

Hmmm... if that lead is just too much to move, I can take a drive from FL and clean it out for you

I had to move to an apartment and put all of non essential 'stuff' in storage. I had six shelving units in my garage, each that holds 32 printer paper boxes full of stuff... lots of tools, lots of reloading stuff (where did all of this stuff come from?), Christmas and holidays stuff, camping stuff, many many boxes of pictures (wife's stuff), all kinds of stuff.

Well I got tired of having to drive six miles to not be able to find what I wanted while paying exhorbitant storage fees in a hot storage unit with dim lighting, so I moved all of those shelves in with me, and I've got to go through all of my stuff and get rid of a bunch of it. It seems that the more I thin it out, the more it looks the same.

Good luck with all of your stuff.

ps - the outboard motor and tree stand in the corner of my living room make great conversation pieces.

[Plate plinker]

Ibuprofen is your friend take it before you hurt.

[rancher1913]

My house has been in the family since 1913, I have four generations of accumulation, only way I could move would be to have a 3 day auction

[Duckiller]

Had a neighbor move after 30+/- yrs. After he and his wife spent 3 hard weeks of packing his advice was hire some one to pack and move you. Good luck on your move.

[Crash_Corrigan]

Last year I moved from a tin trailer home of about 650 SQ Feet into a 2 bdr 2 bath rental home here in Las Vegas. It was July and hotter than blazes but it was a dry heat. Sure. I have a decent sized cargo trailer of 5' x 8' and I loaded it about 10 times and dragged most of my loose stuff to the new location by working only during the night and early morning. I had thrown out or given away a large amount of useless and obsolete goods earlier and I left a lot of trash behind in the trailer as it was to be demolished and removed from the park after I left. Then the movers came and moved the big stuff and did it all in about 5 hours.

As I suffer from COPD my stamina is a joke. I can work for about 10 mins and then I needed another 10 mins to rest, rehydrate and take some oxygen via a tube and mask. One evening during a break period somewhere between 0030 and 0430 some thief or thieves ransacked my trailer and garage of over $10 K in presses and reloading gear including a beloved old 3 screw Ruger Flattop Blackhawk in pristine condition. I will never be able to replace that weapon. I am still going around and around with the insurance company on that claim.

At the end of it all I am very happy in the new digs but I am still culling through and dumping items that are not needed, defective, obsolete or loved anymore. It is tough but necessary as I will not again have to go through such a terrible experience of moving and packing, unpacking, sorting and finding a good place for my belongings again for stuff that has no value to me.

All I can say is to be relentless and cull out belongings, have a few garage sales and when you still have stuff left over take it to Goodwill or the ST. Vincent DePaul folks as they can sell it and it will not go to waste. You get a tax deduction and they get free goods. A win win situation.

[nvbirdman]

When you find stuff just remember, you may not have used it in the last fifty years but there's a good chance you'll need it next week.

[HATCH]

Moving sucks.
I moved 7k + of gear and 5k pounds of lead.
We paid 3 men and a truck to move household gear

I paid the teenager next door to unload a trailer load. 4500 lbs. she did it in 3 hours.
Best $30 I ever spent.

[Petrol & Powder]

Moving sucks!

But, it is a good time to purge the junk we all accumulate. If you haven't used it in years, you clearly do NOT need it. If you find something and think it is sentimental, ask yourself if you even knew you still had it? Chances are it is only sentimental because you just rediscovered it.

The things we tend to think are valuable artifacts are often just touchstones to our past. Sometimes those touchstones are important and should be maintained but sometimes they are just kitsch that we need to let go of.

Some things are not worth moving. 40 year old pressboard furniture that was cheap 40 years ago should never be moved. It is weak, heavy and nearly valueless. Leave it.
Clothes that don't fit. Really? you're going move something only to throw it away at the other end of the journey? Give it to charity or toss it out; don't move it.
Consumables, this one is bizarre. If you know you are moving, start using up everything you can. I've seen people move massive amounts of food, paper products, soap and other consumable items. Stop buying that stuff !

Moving isn't fun but it can be incredibly liberating.

[shoot-n-lead]

I have always heard..." Three moves are as good as a fire" for thinning things out...I believe it.

[DerekP Houston]

When you find stuff just remember, you may not have used it in the last fifty years but there's a good chance you'll need it next week.

lmao you beat me to it. Never fails as soon as I junk something I find out what I needed it for....

Best of luck with the move, we are going piece meal here, a load or 2 each until we make a dent then will hire movers for the safe and furniture.

[xs11jack]

I have this vision floating thru my head, you are digging something out a box in the new place and you hollar "Hon do you know there the other half of this wizbang I bought 29 years ago at the yard sale????" And a good number of times she just might surprise you and say "That box you are sitting on, it's in there." I have had that happen a number of times, sorta scares me a little.
Ole Jack