Congratulations! You found a new place to live!

Before you can lounge in your new living room, however, you need to focus on moving out of your current home. To keep your stress level down, start planning ahead with these five tips:

1.  Pick a Date

Your new lease has a start date, and that’s usually the day to aim for. If you have a few days of leeway, you may be able to pick the most convenient date for your move. Your neighborhood may be very busy on weekends, there may be a street fair, so a weekday move might be best. Or vice versa. Some buildings only allow weekday moves. The key is to pick the ideal date for you and work from there.

2.  Clear Out the Clutter

A move is the perfect time to simplify your life and throw out things you don’t need or want. You have to go through every single thing in your home anyway, so why not take advantage and get rid of some stuff? Some things are easy to toss (old clothes, old papers). Other things may feel sentimental. So ask yourself this question, “Do I need the object to hold on to the memory associated with it?”  The answer may be no and you will find that it is a relief to lighten your load both figuratively and actually.

3.  Choose a Moving Company

Unless you are a college student with lots of friends who will work for pizza, odds are you will need to bring in a moving company. We find that average apartments in New York City require 20 – 70 boxes to move, as well as living room and bedroom furniture. Of course we encourage you to use Rainbow Movers NY, but we understand you may want to speak with several companies. Read our posting, 5 Questions To Ask Your Next Moving Company.” And then call us.

4.  Make Arrangements for Both Buildings

If you are moving from one apartment to another one, check with both buildings to arrange your move. You may have to reserve the date and secure access to the elevators and delivery entrances or loading docks. There may be other moving restrictions or requirements in your buildings, and you need to know about them and make arrangements in advance. You don’t want to find out you can’t move with the moving truck parked on a New York City street!

5.  Pack Your “Here I Am” Boxes

We’ve written about Here I Am boxes on our blog, but it is worth mentioning again. Pack up 1-4 boxes with the essential items that you’ll need immediately in your new home, which may include:

• Clothing for a few days
• Bed linens and towels
• Basic kitchen and bathroom items
• Key pacifying toys for your kids
• Electronic cables, chargers, remote controls

We ask our clients to mark their “Here I Am” boxes with a big X on all sides. Our movers will know to look for those boxes and put them in a special spot in your new apartment for easy access.

Be sure to pack any valuables and important medications that you want to take to your new place yourself.

We aim to keep your stress to a minimum by helping you prepare in advance and be ready for Moving Day. We handle every customer’s individual needs. That’s why they come back to us for their next move, and it’s also why we have been in business since 1978.

Call Rainbow Movers NY for information and an on-site estimate for your next residential or commercial move! We have a Special Offer on Storage Services too!

We are here to help you plan, prepare, and make your move go as smoothly as possible.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Springtime is about beautiful flowers and sunny days. People all over the city are starting to think about how much they’d like to remodel the office, move to a new apartment, or at least rearrange the furniture. It is the also almost time for college graduations. We thought we would launch some new offer programs to help make your spring even more enjoyable.

1.  Store With Us and Your 6th Month Is Free!

Is this the time you will be starting the long awaited improvement project for your living or work space? If you need to clear space for workers and keep your belongings safe, we can help you pack, move to storage, coordinate with your contractor(s), and return everything when the work is finished. For storage of 6 months or more starting in April of May, your sixth month will be free!  Contact us for details.

2.  *New* Summer Storage Program for Students!

Students who contact us often have too little to move or store to be able to afford our usual minimum charges. So we have launched a new program. If at least three students join together, we will treat your group as one job so you can share the expense of both the moving and the storage. We will make a plan with you and your friends to divide costs, and we will take care of everything until you need it affordably redelivered. 

3.  Refer A Friend!

Most of our new customers come to us from past customers. Now, as we start our 35th year in business, we will give a $50 moving credit to anyone you refer who hires us for their stress-free move. They’ll love you for the moving credit. If they love you enough already, you can keep the credit for your own next move. Feel free to share our outstanding reviews on Yelp, our A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and the Department of Transportation.

We want you to take advantage of our services and these offers.  Give us a call.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Are you thinking of buying or selling a property in Astoria, Queens? If so, we recommend speaking with Susanne Gutermuth at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Susanne is well versed in the intricacies of the real estate market in general, and Astoria in particular. On top of that she is a warm and caring person. It is her nature to understand and work in her clients’ best interests. With so much complexity and uncertainty involved in NY real estate transactions, it is a great comfort to work with an agent like Susanne.

Another business partner we recommend is Orion Integrated IT. If your IT needs involve a Mac (or an office full of them) and a CRM program, we think very highly of Orion IT. They have expertise in most things Macintosh, but we came to know Jeff Haynor and his team when we engaged them to help us to setup the Daylite CRM program.  If you do not want the time-wasting frustration of wrestling with help pages and online bulletin boards, and you DO want to adapt a great CRM program to your business needs, we recommend contacting Orion iIT.

Do you have a great professional or business service you can recommend to us?

This article is copyright © 2012 

Asta on Moving Day

We know how stressful it can be for people move from one home and into another.  We also know that a move can be equally stressful on a cat or dog — and even fish.

Based on years of experience as movers and pet-owners ourselves, we have developed these tips for moving your pets into their new home with as little stress as possible for them:

1. Dog Are Not Luggage

You can’t pack them in a crate and throw them in the back of a moving truck. And you definitely can’t strap them to the roof of your car.

If you have a safe, familiar place to keep the dog for the day while you’re moving, such as a friend’s house, that’s probably the best bet for keeping them calm and out of harm’s way.  If the dog is going to stay with you during the day, keep her confined in a safe part of the house, away from the movers and the boxes. Check on her regularly and make sure her food and water bowls are full. Don’t forget to take her for her regular walks. Some things don’t change, even on Moving Day.

As you are moving into your new home, keep your dog confined in a safe room until the move-in is finished, for her own safety and the safety of the movers. Once the movers are finished, let her explore her new home. We’ve found that dogs usually adapt quickly to their new environment as long as they are with you, their human pack.

2. Cats Are A Little More Complicated

Unlike dogs, cats are much more attached to their places — that familiar chair, or that spot in the afternoon sun.  So we find that cats often take longer to adjust than dogs, although the will get used to their new place over time.

When you bring your cat to your new home, make sure you show him where his food and his litter box are right away. And then let him go exploring.  He will explore every nook and cranny of the new place, and you may not see him for hours.  That is a good thing.  He will eventually find a new patch of sun in his new home.

3. Avoid A Rough Ride With Your Hamsters, Iguanas And Other Small Creatures

The key to moving small pets living in cages is to move them to their new location with as little jostling as possible. Carefully transport them to your new home and find a quiet, safe place for the cage, not too hot and not too cold. Try to prevent them from being exposed to loud noises during the move. And then spend extra time with them over the next few days to observe them and let them know that everything is normal.

4. Fish Need Their Own Water

To prevent your fish from stressing out during the move, the best thing to do is to move their tank water too. You’ll want to transport the water in containers (gallon milk jugs work great). Transport the fish in a container too and not in the fish tank to avoid waves and spilling. When you get to your new home, leave the fish in their container and fill the tank back up with the original water. Let the fish and the water sit for 24 hours to adjust to the new room temperature, and then gently pour the fish back into the tank. They should be happy as, well, a fish in water.

Rainbow Movers cannot move your pets for you, but we can definitely help you plan to move them yourself with minimal stress for them and you.  And there’s nothing like a happy, furry face to make your new place feel like home.

Photo courtesy of Amarillis Kroon.

This article is copyright © 2012 

There can be something transformational about moving into a new space. First you get the chance to say hello to the historical parade of things you have valued enough to keep and keep again as you pack and unpack each individual item. Then there are the things you now have the opportunity to say goodbye to. Change can freshen your perspective as you make a new start living in new space.

So why stop with just the changes to your space and the things you put in it? Your move is also an opportunity to make other changes you may have been meaning to make in your life for a while.

Rainbow Movers is a company that aims to make the process of moving into your new home, office or venue as stress-free as possible. We also like it if we get the chance to help our clients take the adventure of their move even further by introducing them to some great people we know and trust, who provide extremely useful and forward-looking services.

Olympic athletes never make a move without consulting with their coaches, who become accountability partners in crystallizing and achieving goals. We could all benefit from this kind of coaching partnership in our business and personal lives. Coaches offer invaluable and personally applied expertise. I’d like to speak up for two coaches I know well, whose work has affected m in business and in my everyday life.

Jeri Quinn of Driving Improved Results is a business coach who can help you motivate your employees, grow your business, improve your results, or any other business related challenges you may be facing.  Whether you own your own business or lead a team in a company, Jeri can help you set goals effectively and develop the best strategy to reach them. She has helped Rainbow Movers immensely (watch the video above), and we can’t recommend her services highly enough.

Christy Goldfeder Delicious Life Health Coaching will help YOU take control of your diet!  Taking care of yourself means eating right, exercising, and getting the rest you need.  Simple, right? Well, we know it’s not always simple at all. That’s when an expert in nutrition and wellness like Christy can bring her experience to your individual needs. Christy’s down to earth style makes these concepts easy to understand as she coaches you. Her technique does not involve starving, but rather a diet change, timed to the seasonal availability of fresh food, and our individual seasonal body needs. One size does not fit all, but many of us can end up a size or two smaller by eating better.

Whether you focus on your business or your personal life, or both, these two outstanding professionals are dedicated to helping people just like us. The trick is that you have to be ready to work with them, ready to make the changes, and ready to enjoy all the benefits. If that works for you, then we encourage you to call Jeri and/or Christy to learn more about their services and find out how they can work with you.

~Lenny Sass

This article is copyright © 2012