Your Complete Bathroom Packing Guide

Packing your entire home for a move takes many days to complete. The bedrooms and kitchens are big ones in particular because that’s where you accumulate the most stuff. However, once you step foot in the bathroom to begin packing, you’ll realize that’s the room that will give you the most challenges.

Understanding the challenges of bathroom packing will help you simplify the process and move along efficiently. Here are some helpful bathroom packing tips to guide you:

Sort

This is one of the most complex rooms in the house to sort, aside from the kitchen. You can’t just throw everything into a box and hope it all makes it to the destination in one piece. You have handheld mirrors, lotions, toiletries, towels and medicine. Then there are the cleaning supplies to think about, which have to be packed separately and with care, or discarded.

Before you start packing things up, you must sort. This means taking stock of what you have and grouping like items. Here are some suggestions:

Small electric appliances and accessories
Toiletries (toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, etc.)
Shaving accessories
Makeup
Perfumes and deodorants
Prescription medication
Towels and linens
Cleaning supplies
Miscellaneous

Purge

As you sort, you should also be purging. Throw out all unwanted items, expired medications, and broken items. Why pay to move stuff you don’t need anyway? Donate old towels to local shelters as well as any unopened toiletries you’ve been collecting on your hotel stays. Getting rid of unwanted items simply because you don’t need them anymore is one thing; the second part of the equation is to dispose of things that are no longer safe.

This includes:

Appliances and accessories: Make sure anything you keep is in good working order. If you have duplicates of something – say a blow dryer – get rid of it.
Make-up and cosmetics: Toss any products that have expired, dried out or have become damaged.

Medicine: Go through your medicine cabinet and dispose of any medications that have expired, have missing labels, or have changed their properties in appearance, smell or taste.

Cleaning supplies and chemicals: Many cleaning supplies are against your movers’ rules and they won’t transport them for you. Ask for a list of restricted items from them beforehand.

Pack

The final stage is the packing. Ask each family to pack a bathroom essentials bag whereby they include all items they can’t live without for a night or two, including prescriptions, contacts and saline solution, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, etc.

Next, line and pad your boxes with packing paper, followed by a bathroom towel to create a protective base inside each box. If you are taking the mirror with you, wrap it in soft packing paper covered with thick cardboard on top. As an extra layer of protection, wrap the mirror in bubble wrap.

Now, on to the liquids. To avoid bad spills and leaks during your move, place any bottles of liquids in zippered plastic bags. Unscrew the cap, place plastic wrap on the opening, then place the cap back on. Then, put each bottle into its own plastic baggie.

When packing mirrors and other delicates, take advantage of all the natural padding you have in the bathroom: use your towels.

As you box up your bathroom items, label each box so you know exactly what’s in it later. Include the content of the box as well as its destination room. Add the word “fragile” accordingly.