Filling a Pod!

In order to move a lot of stuff at one time we ordered a pod from Packrat. It was 16x7x8 and the company provided us with 15 moving blankets and a lock. The pod was dropped off on Saturday and will be picked up Tuesday with delivery at my house in TN in two weeks. So the plan was to fill it on Saturday with the packed boxes that were taking over our house. Then on Sunday morning get more stuff out of the attic (mostly Christmas decorations) to finish it off. Now one thing to keep in mind was the 6000lbs weight limit. It sounds like a lot but it was kind of surprising at how fast the pounds added up . . . in fact I don't know what thought was more daunting ..  the fact that we might hit the weight limit or the fact that we were moving that much stuff in two days.

We had a morning drop off time which meant between 8-1. Naturally the pod came at 1. Ok. So the plan was to fill the pod with as many like sized boxes as possible to prevent shifting while it was being transferred. The driver who dropped off the pod recommended keeping the heaviest stuff in the middle of the pod (rather then filling the back) this way the weight would be evenly balanced. So we started in the back left corner and moved left to right-front to back. 

We filled the back third with more fragile/lighter things. This also made more valuable stuff kind of protected since there is a whole lot of things to move to get to them. My Russian Nesting dolls and coin collection are back there. So are some keepsakes from high school trips and three months of living in Rome, Italy during college.  We also put all our vhs and dvds in the back. Once the back third was filled we used cardboard and an old mattress to secure it and bungee corded it tightly. Now we were at the middle where we were told to focus the weight. Since the mattress was on the left side of the pod I put the fridge on the right side. This way it will help to hold the items in the back still. It is bubble wrapped and we put the moving blankets over it then wrapped it in card board and individually bungee corded it to the side of the pod. Next we started loading boxes of books into the pod. What I did was take like items (Meg's books or my Mom's books or my books) and shrink wrap three boxes together. It made it manageable for me to move it on a hand truck and added stability. I had done the same in the back with the boxes of vhs and dvd. While it may have added time to packing the pod it will save time when we unpack it and, like I said before, it adds stability to the boxes. Basically everything we did was to prevent shifting as much as possible. Each box of books was roughly 50lbs which made each stack 150lbs. This is how the weight added up very quickly. Believe it or not but you are looking at 2000lbs of books right there! I hear that book sales are slowing down . . .this means in a few years next to the Library of Congress we may have the largest book collection in the Western Hemisphere :-) On top of the books we stacked boxes of my Mom's records, an old doll house, Christmas decorations, and my Mom's Christmas tree. Then we repeated the card board and bungee cords for extra support.

Now we had less then a third of floor space left. And I think about 1000lbs left. We added a grill that my amazing coworkers gave to Meg and me, a telescope that we have had since we were kids, our baby bassinets which my mom has kept all this time, and the hand truck I will need when we get down to TN. Each of the front items are individually bungee corded to the walls of the pod to prevent moving and shifting. We will see how well our precautions worked in two weeks when we go down to TN to unpack the pod. 

Next step is on Tuesday when the packrat pod will be picked up and weighed. Anyone want to make a guess as to the weight? I'll just hope for under 6000lbs or else we will have to unload some items before the driver can take it.