It’s crazy we have been in our new home for almost 4 months now. The move wasn’t that the smoothest towards the end, but we made it. Yay! It’s taking some time to get settled but we love it so far!

The kids are also settling in nicely, which gives us a peace of mind (and more sleep!) Now I can get a chance to share all the businesses we used to help our move go well. If you are moving soon, hopefully some of these help!

Neighborhoods:

One of the most popular questions I have gotten over the past few months are the what family friendly neighborhoods we had on our list.. We started with neighborhoods we loved. We toured them, went to the local coffee shops, grocery stories etc. It also took us years to find a right fit, so I don’t think the process should be rushed at all. I even hung out in a coffee shop all day and met a fellow mom so I could ask her all about what schools she sent her children to. The feedback from someone in the community is super helpful!

Our top priority was school and public school, not private as of right now.

Neighborhoods we started looking at were: Bridgeport, Humboldt Park, Avondale, Albany Park, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Old Irving Park/Irving Park, Portage Park, Logan Square, Roscoe Village, West Town/Ukrainain Village

What we narrowed down our options to: Avondale, Roscoe Village, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Old Irving Park/Irving Park and Portage Park

I think it just has to be a right fit for you and your family!

Realtor:

Danny Lewis and his team are wonderful! We went to DePaul with Danny and have known him for a long time now. Eva, who is on his team, did an amazing job selling our place within days! It went so quickly. We blinked and our condo was sold in two open houses.

Danny found our place that is perfect for us! He is super knowledgeable on the market and works quickly to get what you want. He’s also great at the behind the scenes negotiating so that’s always a plus.

Redi-Box

You probably saw these red boxes all over my stories. WE LOVED THEM. So much easier than cardboard boxes. They drop them off along with bubble wrap, tape, labels, etc. You choose your drop off and pick up date with an option to extend them for longer. I have asked them for a code with no luck, but definitely recommend using.

It also forces you to unpack faster so the boxes don’t just sit around. Genius business idea!

Movers

Towards the end of our move, the closing date moved around a few times (at no fault to our realtor). Our movers, On Demand USA were SO flexible. They are a newish moving company and don’t have a ton of Yelp reviews yet, but their customer service was 10/10. They never charged us with changing the date so many times, the move went super quickly and the movers were very nice and efficient. We had to store our things for a few nights and felt totally comfortable doing so in their secure location. Check out their Google reviews for some more great experiences.

Move in Clean

We used Hags with Rags and liked it a lot! We will be using them for our monthly cleans from now on. I will say this was our first move in clean and they are NOT cheap. We weren’t planning on having one done, but since our moving date kept getting changed around, we decided to splurge for it. I will say that their monthly cleans are MUCH cheaper.

Carpet Cleaners

We now have a lot more rooms in this home and some of the carpet is pretty beat up. We have used the Carpet Cleaning Group before and really liked them. They are super reasonable (especially compared to some other companies), they are fast, use clean products safe for our dog. Everything is booked online (I did it through Yelp). Very easy.

I would say above was our moving Dream Team. Haha I am glad we found them all. Below are some other random tips that helped us with this move.

Air Mattress– We bought two of these to sleep on once all our things were in storage. This was probably the most comfortable air mattress I’ve ever slept on. We got them at Target for round $65 for a queen size and they inflate in 2-3 minutes with an attached pump. It’s so easy!

Wardrobe boxes– We have had these for a few years to keep our winter clothes in and they are so easy to move with. It helps unpack quickly too. We bought them from Amazon.

If you want some other Chicago content, head on over to that page on the blog. Otherwise hopefully some of these are helpful! Let me know if you have any questions!

Until next time,

Christine