Advice for moving with Windstones?

[Zelda]

Hi all! I’ve been hired on to work in Washington DC, and will be moving there from halfway across the country in Rapid City, SD in just a month or so (eek!). While I’m excited about the job, I’ve never moved a household across a distance greater than in town before. My fella and I will likely be renting a truck and moving ourselves, and I’m really nervous about my Windstones bouncing around all the way down I-90! Does anyone have any tips to share with moving their own collection?

I have a couple dozen pieces, about half of them older and without original boxes. For them I’ll be constructing boxes (I have a stash of those carboard honeycomb pieces Windstone uses), and will be packing the pieces with factory boxes in them with their bags and inserts. I already know from my last move NOT to directly wrap pieces in bubble wrap 🙁 My main concern is that if I double box everything separately it will take up a LOT of space in the truck, which we might not have to spare. If I single-boxed things, then packed several of them together in bigger boxes walled with foam or peanuts, would they still be okay?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions! Preparing for the move is stressing me out; I’d just like to have one less thing to worry about in making sure my treasures travel safely.

Forever seeking: Blackwatch the raffle Old Warrior, Jennifer Miller's pieces, and GB Baby unis!

[Amy]

Hey Zelda,

I’ve never moved windstones personally, but perhaps your husband could drive the truck, and you could load up your car with all of your babies, properly boxed of course. I think they’d be a lot safer riding in the car with you.

Is that possible?

[Shawna]

All of them single boxed in a bigger box will work, I’ve sent WS to Sapphire this way & they arrived safe, considering that was a lot farther than you are going, (Idaho to Scotland) I am pretty confidant they will survive the trip. 🙂 Hope that helps.

Kyrin

[Zelda]

Whoo, good to know Kyrin! I think that’ll be the way I end up going.

Thanks too Amy Jane. My vehicle may be towed behind the truck, and in either case it’s going to be full up with our houseplants so they don’t get sun starved on the several day drive. I agree the car probably has much better suspension though. I’ll try to cram a few of my particularly special pieces in there to make sure they’re extra safe.

Forever seeking: Blackwatch the raffle Old Warrior, Jennifer Miller's pieces, and GB Baby unis!

[Amy]

Sounds like a plan Zelda 🙂

You’ll have to take pictures and show us their/your new home once you’re all settled in 😉

[dragonmedley]

When we moved, I put them in my car too, wrapped in towels and what not, tightly fit with each other on the floor behind the front seats. No one got hurt!

Congrats on the new job!

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[Jennifer]

I’ve moved many times, and most of them for distances greater than a thousand miles at a time! I’ve done it all.. U-Haul, professional movers, rending space on a commercial 18-wheeler trailer (really), and cars. I’ve found that I’ve never had any damage at all by using the original boxes (in your case, the inserts are the key), and packing all the boxes together so that they don’t bounce much on the truck. I sandwiched boxes in amongst other items so that they didn’t move.
When the movers moved us (not my choice but hey), they sort of just tossed my boxes into the truck and on top of other things. They were none too gentle. I KNOW they bounced and slid around all the way from NJ to GA… but nothing was at all damaged on the other end. Those cardboard inserts are awesome.

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[WolfenMachine]

I just had to move my collection of over 100 pieces and man was that stressful! about 40 didnt have boxes, so I ended up wrapping them in thick blankets and towels, but I was only moving 10 miles away. Since you’re moving so far, me personally, I will say-make sure they are packed well! Maybe people can lend you their boxes? Or you can pack the ones without boxes as if you were going to mail them-very well! If they take up space-oh well. Better than them getting damaged or destroyed. :- I put all my Windstones in my own personal vehicle because I didnt trust the movers to move them or touch them. If you can do that, I would recommend it.

[Leigha]

I moved from California to Illinois and had a VERY limited amount of car space I could use to pack all my stuff, so I wrapped all the Windstones I had without boxes into my clothes boxes. I just wrapped them up in clothes and made sure they were tightly packed but with a thick layer of clothes between them. I transported an emperor and an OW that way along with a bunch of smaller sculpts and they were all just fine 🙂 … it helps that I have a lot of clothes though lol

[Pegasi1978]

As someone who just had to move a household twice in 12 months (getting my stuff that had been in storage at my ex-husband’s to the duplex I was renting and then moving my stuff from the duplex to my fiance’s place) I can give some tips.

I pack whatever Windstones have their custom boxes and inserts first. If I don’t have the original plastic bag, I sub in a ziplock bag. I then wrap the ones that have paper around the plastic wrapped piece and get everything in the box all “snuggly warm”.

For the Windstones that don’t have original boxes I find cardboard boxes as close to size of the piece as possible. I store the piece in ziplock bag, wrap lots of bubble wrap around it and, if there is still room, add packing peanuts to the box. I give the box a little shake to listen for shifting and add more peanuts if needed.

Typically I only put one in each box, but if it’s something small (say the little flapcats or baby unis) I will put two in the box, but I will add a divider first (taped in place) then snuggle the pieces in their own spaces.

Once I have all the windstones boxed I then get a larger box (a dish barrel – 18x18x28 – works well) and start to play tetris. I start with the larger boxes on the bottom and then work up through the smaller boxes on the top.

I can’t remember how may pieces are in my collection, but I can say that everything here fit inside three and a half dish barrels. That is a full-sized bed under all those boxes. It is single layered, except where you see the white boxes and then there are other boxes under those. Four of the boxes contain two pieces, the rest contain one piece each.

It’s worked every time I’ve had to pack and move. I even packed the windstones myself before the military movers played tetris with the boxes when my ex-husband got out of the army.

[Zelda]

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences! I especially like the ideas of using clothes as packing material. I won’t have the ability to stack them loose in my car, but since I have to move them too I can always use some of my bulky winter coats as liners between a bunch of the smaller boxes inside the bigger box. I hope everything will go smoothly, heh! I’ll be taking pictures as I pack and move things just to keep track of what all went into which box – if I come up with anything new that works (or mistakes that didn’t) I’ll be sure to share.

Forever seeking: Blackwatch the raffle Old Warrior, Jennifer Miller's pieces, and GB Baby unis!

[Bodine]

I just had to move my collection of over 100 pieces and man was that stressful! about 40 didnt have boxes, so I ended up wrapping them in thick blankets and towels, but I was only moving 10 miles away. Since you’re moving so far, me personally, I will say-make sure they are packed well! Maybe people can lend you their boxes? Or you can pack the ones without boxes as if you were going to mail them-very well! If they take up space-oh well. Better than them getting damaged or destroyed. :- I put all my Windstones in my own personal vehicle because I didnt trust the movers to move them or touch them. If you can do that, I would recommend it.

I agree,if possible,put them in your personal vehicle,yourself,pack them like you would be shipping it out to someone and we all know how they get tossed around in shipping and as many in Windstone original boxes as possible,should travel quite well.I have to evac here if a storm comes at any time and that is my plan.Windstones in the car,animals in the truck. 😀 Good luck!!

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[Zelda]

Hi all! I wanted to post with the happy update that every single one of my Windstones made it through the move without so much as a fleabite! Most of them even traveled in the moving van, not in my car in tow. I’ve included a few pictures to describe the packing method I used, in case anyone is curious.

This was the piece I was worried about most (I wonder why!). He doesn’t have his original box or bag, so I bagged him up in a couple of plastic ziptop bags. I’ve learned the hard way never to use bubble wrap directly against a Windstone.

Here’s the box he went into. It’s already been packed on five sides with a super-corrogated cardboard material similar to what Windstone uses for their custom-fitted shipping inserts. This gives plenty of padding against impacts that might dent the corners/sides of the box in.

The dragon goes in after a few inches of packing peanuts are added on top of the corrogated panels. More gets piled on top afterwards, making sure they get into all the nooks and crannies.

A final layer of corrogated cardboard goes on top before the box is all closed up. There’s no wiggle room left for the big fella in there, which is a big reason why he made it through the trip safely.

This box got packed with multiple pieces: two males and a votive holder from a candlelamp. Each is separated from the other by a thick wall of rigid material. This was just to test the ‘fit’ of the three pieces before they got buried in packing peanuts.

Hope this helps out someone else anxious about moving with their collection! If I had to do it all over again, I’d have saved up strong boxes and packing peanuts much farther in advance, I needed a LOT of them!

Forever seeking: Blackwatch the raffle Old Warrior, Jennifer Miller's pieces, and GB Baby unis!

[Adaneth]

Thanks for sharing, and congrats on the successful move! 🙂

[Ann]

Thanks for the tutorial! Why can’t you place bubble wrap against windstone?

[Author]

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