If I was in your situation I would get a storage unit in the town where you'll be moving to and start loading up all of the stuff you won't need in the next few weeks: Autum and Christmas decorations, photgraphs, summer and camping supplies, seasonal clothing (pack up the winter gear, if possible), sports gear, any DVDs and videos you won't be watching, bedding, books beyond what you'll need to stage your house, papers, shoes and coats, keepsake boxes, old electronic equipment, and even small furniture items that might seem homey to you but might not add to selling the house quickly. Don't put the pressure on yourself to de-junk. Let the spirit hit you or not, but your goal is just to get the stuff out of your house that you know you can live without until the fall. I'd even pack up Springtime decorations (if you observe Easter) and do something different this year under these circumstances. Once this extra stuff is out of the house, it will be far easier to tackle any other project because there will be less stuff to deal with in the process. Or you can rent a PODS. That can be the task of this upcoming week and then you can spend the following week getting the house ready.

It would be another goal to have a real estate agent (or two) come and appraise your house, say on March 17th, as an added incentive to get the work done quickly. You can make those appointments tomorrow. Once you move, you can de-junk the stored items more carefully, The key is to clear the house as fast as you can to make the most of the two weeks you have to do the work.

On the other hand... I know me, and if I didn't de-junk before I moved, we would keep the junk forever, LOL.

I would de-junk with a frenzy, and get rid of as much clutter as I could so I wouldn't have to move it (or deal with it) twice. We all tend to keep things in our current houses (because we've gotten too "comfortable") that we KNOW we wouldn't want in a new house.

We've moved several times. Here's the things that I learned, mostly the hard way:
1) Go to some business and get boxes that are all the same size. They stack easily.
2) Sort and get rid of the stuff you don't want BEFORE you move. The Salvation Army knows me well! LOL
3) Mark all of your boxes with the content/what room it will be in in your new home.
4) Get rid of stuff! If you haven't used it in a year, get rid of it!
5) Put together a couple of boxes called 'The Moving Kit' - it should have a couple of changes of clothes, toiletries including extra toilet paper, food for a couple of days; tools you need to help in the unpacking process; cash; paper plates and plastic silverware; clean products. My sister in law told me about this and during our last move it was a wonderful thing!
Sue

I started early this morning & am taking a break. There is quite a bit of stuff that I can get rid of fairly quickly. I had mentioned to DH several days ago the possibility of a storage unit. I don't want to store junk, but with the remodeling we need to finish, I don't think we can get it all done in time.

Of course, I'm acting as if this is a done deal & it's not. We would be moving to an area that has a higher cost of living than where we currently are. We have done a bit of searching on the internet for homes just so we'd have some info. We knew that area had much higher real estate prices than the small town where we live now, but we didn't realize just how high. I'm sure DH's company will take that into consideration. Neither of us has been relocated by a company before, so this is a new experience for us.

We have decided to go forward as if we'll be moving. If it doesn't happen, I'll be happy just because of getting things done around here.

What sort of touch-ups/improvements are most important for selling your home? I know that the house needs to be very clean, that clutter etc. needs to be removed, & that paint needs to be freshened or touched up? What else? What is most important? We've only looked for a house once (this one). We knew from the beginning that we would need to remodel, so we looked past blemishes & that sort of thing.

Will the company be paying for the move? If yes, they will most likely do the packing for you. Any boxes that you pack yourself and they do not repack will not be covered by the insurance. Always ask for replacement cost insurance. Except for paying for my own local moves, I've moved many times long distance with the company always paying for these.

The hardest part is keeping on top of the packers. They must get a kick out of finding items that have no relationship to the room they're packing just to fill a box. I now tell the estimator that I don't want that to happen and if they need to use more boxes, so be it.

I have mixed feelings about movers doing the unpacking, if that is an option for you. They are only supposed to take things out of the boxes and leave the stuff on the floors or counters. I lucked out in my last move and the movers put all my books, CD and DVD collections on the bookshelves as well as putting all my kitchen stuff into the cabinets. That made such a difference. There was reorganizing to do but at least I felt that most of my things were put away.

I focused on these areas:

-anything that might have indicated "we don't have enough room for our stuff"

So I did clean out the triangular closet, and folded stuff neatly. Moved the bucket out of the bathroom and into the closet.

I did move stuff out of the biggest closets and into off-site storage, mostly bcs when those are full, it's hard to see how big they are.

I cleared out a little bit of the clothes closets, just to make a little empty space among the other stuff.

-anything that said "we never fixed anything" or "you might need to redo this room"

Though I didn't do so well here--the white caulk pulled off the clear, and so the gap between tub & tub surround showed, though it's full of CLEAR caulk. There's a ding in the paint at a corner in the bathroom, at eye level. And I couldn't do anything about the floors--it would have made us flat-out insane to live through that.