Packing & Moving is a Family Affair

Moving is never easy, but making it a team effort helps quite a bit! One of our favorite anecdotes from a customer was that they had their Elephant Trunk moving crates delivered and their teenage daughter grabbed a box and started packing without even being asked! Imagine, that could be your experience!

All packed up in the Elephant Trunk box and ready for the new house!

Tips for Getting Family Motivated to Pack

• Make it a game! Who can pack the most drawers in the kitchen the fastest?

• Set time frames - we’ll pack for this one song, then dance party during the next! Pack boxes for 30 minutes, play a game for 15 minutes!

• Find a fun audiobook or podcast that the whole family wants to listen to and ONLY listen to it while packing! Or individual audiobooks/podcasts specifically listened to while packing

• Plan something fun for after - a special meal out, go see a movie, go window shop for furniture for the new place!

There is no perfect science, but find what motivates your family and find ways to spend quality time together during it! Moving is stressful for everyone involved, kids included. Possibly changing schools, having to make new friends, learn a new house, so the motivation to pack up and head into that great unknown can be difficult. Make it fun, make it exciting, use it as an opportunity to make memories!

And with Elephant Trunk moving bins, you don’t have to worry about assembly, going to pick up boxes and tape, or disposing of the boxes after the move is done! Your family can easily grab the boxes, pack them, and close them up themselves!

As a family-owned and operated business, who better to get advice from on working together as a family!?

Happy packing!

Packing Tips With Instant Gratification

Obviously most aspects of moving are not fun at ALL - at least not until you’re in the new space and get to settle in and really make it your own. But packing honestly feels the most tedious of all - and requires so much thought and can lead to serious decision fatigue. Should you put all the bathroom stuff in one box, or pack based on categories in each room? What about the small stuff? What about the big stuff? It’s just a lot.

Well, these tips are intended to help you feel like you got a lot done without a lot of thought or effort. These are also great steps if you’re putting your house on the market and need to start pre-packing.

1. Pack Books

An empty bookcase will make you feel like there’s nothing left to do, the satisfaction after packing up books is so great. And a great thing about the Elephant Trunk moving boxes is that they don’t have to be taped closed, so if you packed something into a container that you didn’t mean to pack, or you made the box too heavy, you can easily pull it out and reorganize!

If you have an organizing system for your books, be sure to reference it somehow on the label. Whether you label by genre or label by what the bookcase looks like. Streamline your unpacking and do your future self a favor by specifying what needs to go where.

If an empty bookcase doesn’t feel like a HUGE win, well then just go to the next tip!

2. Pack Half of your Clothes (At Least)

If you’re selling your home & your Realtor didn’t tell you this before listing… well now I am telling you! Pack all your out-of-season clothes, special occasion clothes, “goal” clothes (we all have them), and maybe take this opportunity to clear out clothes you haven’t worn in a long time! Large Elephant Trunk packing boxes are perfect for clothes because they won’t get too heavy to carry if you’re moving yourself.

Vacuum bags are also a great option, especially for storing out of season clothes after the move!

This also goes for shoes, coats, accessories, anything that you’re not wearing between now and after your move you probably do not need to take up space in your closet anymore! And if you’re listing your house the added bonus is that it shows way better to potential buyers with less stuff clogging the space.

3. Pack Your Linen Closet

Extra towels, extra sheets, extra comforters, the keyword here is EXTRA. You do not need those things at this time when you are getting ready to move! You may have to do a little more laundry, but have way less stuff to pack in the future!

4. Pack Special Occasion Items

Just like how you don’t need any special occasion clothes hanging in your closet, you don’t need any special occasion serving dishes or holiday decor taking up space in your kitchen or storage closet or attic!

Now is a great time to pack your china cabinet, maybe leave the display items out (minimize wherever possible), but you can pack all the extra dishes, serving bowls, steak knives, and anything in the drawers and cabinets. We provide a great wrap to protect your dishes, as well as a quilted glassware storage case, and you can use newspaper in your recycle bin if you have any!

Any wreaths that are not in use, seasonal decorations, and anything you don’t plan to use in the next month or so while moving can definitely be packed up first.

Those are our top tips for packing that will give you some instant gratification - just a little dose of serotonin in a process that is not easy on anyone. Although, something that makes all moving experiences easier is Elephant Trunk! Be sure to check out our rentable moving boxes that can be delivered right to your door, that don’t require assembly, and make pre-packing a little less committal. Click here to take a look at our products and prices! And don’t forget to check out our reviews if you’re not totally sold!

Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies - New Product Photos

As you all know, we are a small family-owned business. Our original product photos when we first started were taken at our home, and the next set of product photos were taken at our storage facility by Chloe (the daughter of the family business). A few months ago we finally went pro-style and rented a studio (shoutout to the Lumen Room in Dallas!) and hired our favorite photographer Sarah Fun (she took the photos at our house, too) and ended up with some amazing new pictures of all of our products! Every bedroom package, dolly, wrap, even some pictures of us!

As a small business with three big opinion-filled visionaries, we went back and forth about a lot of aspects of this photoshoot - but boy are we all ecstatic with how all the thought and planning paid off! You can see all of our product shots on our order page - in case you feel like doing some gawking! We took new pictures of each bedroom package, of our wrap (which is fully recyclable!), of the blankets (which are made of recycled materials), all four of our dollies (the dual hand/platform truck, the box dolly, the flat dolly, and the shoulder dolly) the quilted glassware storage case, and the wardrobe.

This was a very exciting step for us! We would love to hear what you all think of our new photos!

And if you are ever in the market for a photographer for anything (products, weddings, headshots, graduation, parties, truly ANYTHING) look no further than Sarah Fun! She is so incredibly talented - she also designed our logo!

Of course, if you are in need of moving supplies for a local Dallas-Fort Worth move then we encourage you to look no further than Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies! We have pro-style photos now! Our rentable moving boxes and supplies make every move easier and more efficient with or without professional movers on top. We will happily deliver your bedroom package and moving accessories right to your door, give you time to pack (or have them packed), move (or have them moved), and unpack the boxes and then we will come to whisk them away and you don’t have to worry about breaking down cardboard after the move or finding a poor sap to give the boxes to!

5 Moving Tips for Maintaining Sanity

As you know, our mission is to make the moving process less stressful! So I have compiled a few tips for moving that are focused on maintaining your sanity while moving. Because that is usually easier said than done!

This is a serene image to emphasize how stress free your move could be!

1. Order Elephant Trunk

   So I want to get the OBVIOUS out of the way first. Our moving boxes and supplies are the best stress reducers in the moving process! You don’t have to go pick them up, and you can order them from the comfort of your home over the phone or online. The boxes are delivered to your door, no assembly is required, and once you are finished unpacking we come and whisk them away! How is that not stress-reducing and amazing? We are in no way biased here.

2. Color Coding

   I highly recommend getting different colored sharpies for labeling! Use one color for living space, one color for the kitchen, one color for each kid’s room, et cetera et cetera! You can tell your movers what the colors represent so they can be sure to put the boxes in the correct space, and you’re not shuffling boxes around for a week after you’ve moved in. Some people use different colored tape on their cardboard boxes - but since ya don’t need tape with Elephant Trunk you don’t need to worry about buying 12 different colored rolls of tape for the color coding!

3. Pack a Day-of-Move Bag or Box

   This is CRITICAL. Think of it like an overnight bag - what would you need if you were going to be “away from home” for 24 hours? You can even plan it like a camping overnight bag if that makes it more real for you. Include all of your toiletries, changes of clothing, minor cleaning supplies, food and snacks, chargers, backup batteries, and any needed work items you can’t be apart from so that you’re not frantically ripping boxes open in search of. The list goes on, but think about it like you’re going to be away from home, and you can’t exist without these items! Oh - and scissors. Put scissors in here. You’ll need them.

4. Schedule Eating & Set Reminders to Drink Water

   These things might sound obvious - they are not. Do them. Plan when and where and what you are going to eat for the WHOLE moving day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Hunger is too real to risk dealing with that on top of everything else you are juggling on moving day. Try to make one of the meals a treat for yourself and everyone involved. No one at the restaurant cares if you look crazy and worn down for dinner if that’s how you show up! And if you’re moving in Texas there’s a 60% chance you’re moving in unbearable heat, and you will be dehydrated! Hydrating is good.

5. Budget for Movers

So I know this might not be what you want to hear, but you probably know a few months before you are going to be moving, and you should use that time to plan for the move. That should include saving some money for what’s going to be necessary when the move occurs and saving to hire movers. Even if they’re just to move the big stuff - like appliances and your mattress - it will be SO nice to not have to handle that yourself. The physical exertion of it, the concern you’re going to break your washing machine, sweating all over your mattress that you forgot to cover with plastic. Imagine only having to maneuver a dolly to and from the moving truck - how nice could that be? If you have stairs and no elevator I cannot recommend movers for this enough. I have done my fair share of third floor moves without an elevator and it is not pretty.

I hope this has been helpful for you & I wish you a stress-reduced move! Because let’s be honest - weird stuff comes up on moving day and somehow things go wrong and you can only prepare so much. But I’m tellin’ ya - doing these things to prepare for the move will bring you some great peace.

Our Mission Statement

Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies aims to make the moving process less stressful and more environmentally conscientious with rentable moving supplies.

From left to right: Mollie Hancock, John Hancock, and Chloe Hancock

And I wanna tell you a little more about us!

We are coming up on our five-year anniversary (August 1st - woohoo!), and I thought now would be a great time to tell you a little more about us, where we started, and what we aspire to be.

First off - if you have not read our article in Plano Magazine - I highly recommend ya do! And I am not biased in making this suggestion, I don’t think! It’s a quick read and gives some direct quotes from one of our owners - Mollie - and her inspiration that started it all.

We are a family-owned and operated business - if ya didn’t know! We are not a franchise, though we did get the idea from a company in Canada called Frog Box. We asked them if they wanted to franchise here in Texas, but they were not interested. So we decided we could do it ourselves! We connected with a friend of mine (longtime friend - we were in Girl Scouts together) and asked her to design a logo for us, take some photos of our products, and create a website for us! We are eternally grateful to her, see more of her work here! Her name is Sarah Fun and we are big fans of hers at Elephant Trunk.

We started the business with a blue F-150 - not the lovely wrapped van you see around town now. We had a few hiccups with that and finally were told by a friend that we NEEDED a van to be “pro-style” (as John would say).

We have grown a LOT in these five years, and we are excited for the many more anniversaries to come! We so appreciate everyone’s support of us and our mission. Your reviews, you guys telling every person you meet about us - that really means a lot and it helps us so much! We may be almost five years old at this point, but we are still a very new concept and one a lot of people haven’t heard of! So keep on spreading the good word!

If you have friends or family moving in the DFW metroplex, we would be truly honored to be their option to the cardboard box!

A Review of our Reviews

In our four and a half years of business, we have accumulated 51 Google reviews (5/5 Stars), 25 Facebook recommendations (5.0/5 Rating), and 15 Yelp reviews (5/5 Stars)! If you feel so inclined to leave us a review on any of those platforms we would so appreciate it!

So I thought I would highlight some of the things people have said about us, our service, and our rentable moving boxes!

The Boxes

“Their boxes come in different sizes and are in excellent, clean condition!” - Christine

“These boxes are far superior to cardboard.” - Mike

“I was able to pack my items with confidence and not having to worry if I packed too much weight or if my items will get crushed from boxes on top. The crates were extremely sturdy, hold a lot, and stack so neatly.” - Aimee

“The boxes are great quality, stack easily, and save you the hassle of taping and cutting a bunch of boxes.” - Danielle

Elephant Trunk & Movers

“The movers were able to move them very quickly in large stacks and they organized neatly into the truck.” - Stephanie

“Our customers love that they are eco friendly, affordable, reusable, and no tape! Our movers love how fast they are to load and move. Win-Win!” - Wildcat Movers

“I am convinced renting bins paid for itself since the movers were able to load and unload quicker and we didn’t have to buy tape and cardboard boxes.” - Amanda

The Elephant Trunk Experience

“Elephant Trunk Moving delivers your boxes to your home and picks them up when you are done on your schedule.” - James

“We used a four bedroom package to move from one four bedroom house to another, and the number of crates was almost exactly right.” - Eric

“I do not want to move again, but if I do then I would definitely use them again in the future.” - T

“From beginning to end, this was ridiculously simple and convenient.” - Carolyn

“Awesome business, amazing idea, great customer service, great value, good for the planet, much better than cardboard boxes!!!” - Adriana

Obviously we at Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies love Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies - and it’s so great that our customers love us too. If you or someone you know is planning a local move within Dallas-Fort Worth we hope these reviews convince you to give us a chance! Think Outside the Cardboard Box!

Our Top 3 Eco Friendly Cleaning Accessories

During this time of working from home, social distancing, and overall remaining in our personal spaces way more than ever before, I know many of us are doing a lot more cleaning than ever before!

So I thought I would share a few of the best cleaning accessories that are earth-friendly and reusable! (Just like our moving boxes 😉)

Reusable Cleaning Cloths

There are lots of options for reusable cleaning cloths!

• Cut up old t-shirts. They are great and free!

• There are lots of places to buy microfiber cloths - Amazon, Norwex (the best, in my opinion. They also make a glass cleaning cloth that requires no cleaning solution - just water!), auto supply stores, and places like HomeGoods!

Extendable Duster

Not to pretend I don’t love Swiffer dusters, I know they’re incredible, BUT they unfortunately are not reusable! So here are some duster options that you can use and toss in the washer to clean and use again!

• Click here for an option from Home Depot

• Click here for a variety of options on Amazon

Steam Mop

In my professional opinion - the steam mop is one of the best cleaning products to ever happen. It means you don’t have to fill a bucket with water, do any wringing, and you don’t have to wait forever for the water to dry off the floor. A steam mop retains its heat, so it always stays at the optimal temperature to disinfect floors. Another plus is that the high temperature of a steam mop helps get tough stains without requiring extra scrubbing, providing a deep clean with less effort. AND you can just throw the pad in the wash after use! I recently purchased this steam mop - it has a bunch of different attachments, and I love it! Some other great options include:

• BISSELL PowerFresh Steam Mop - $90

• Shark Genius Steam Mop - $120

Another great option - if you already own a Swiffer then green-up your cleaning with reusable pads!

Those are three great new eco-friendly cleaning accessories and tools for you to incorporate into your cleaning routine!

We at Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies are big proponents of green cleaning - we personally use non-toxic cleaning solutions, and reusable cloths when cleaning our rentable moving boxes for our customers. Next we’ll make a post about some great green cleaning companies for you to consider, so when you run out of a harsh cleaner, you can have a green option!

COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions

Moving homes is stressful enough, then adding the stress of the current pandemic on top is not ideal. We at Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies want to reassure you that we are considering your safety when delivering or picking up our moving boxes from your home, so you can feel comfortable when ordering from us!

Here is a video covering a number of frequently asked questions regarding our COVID-19 response:

Are You Open?

Yes! Moving is an essential business in every county and we are out delivering. So if you need moving boxes in this time feel free to place an order to rent our moving boxes here, or give us a call at 214-755-4675.

How Are Boxes Being Cleaned?

First of all - the turnover between picking up boxes and delivering them to another house is usually a minimum three days. Past that we are using the Thieves cleaning solution from Young Living, a shop vac for dust and pieces, and sometimes a steam cleaner. I do want to clarify that in the video I refer to the Thieves cleaning solution as being antibacterial - there is nothing on the site that necessarily says that but the base of the product is Anionic surfactants and you can read more about them here. Find the full list of ingredients and more information here.

Can I Order Contactless delivery?

If this is something you are interested in talk to John about it or put it in the order notes! He will call you to confirm your delivery date and time once your order is placed, so you can discuss this option then. He can definitely bring the boxes to your door or put them in your garage without you present.

We want to do everything we can to keep everyone involved safe during all of this!

Though the pandemic is unfortunate, moving is still happening every day and we are happy to be your option to the cardboard box for your Dallas-Fort Worth local move.

Terracycle x Bausch + Lomb: Contact Recycling

I obviously don’t know the condition of the eyesight of those of you reading this – but my eyesight is really awful. On top of that, I live in the south which is essentially HQ for seasonal allergies. Due to all of that – I wear daily contacts. And I feel so painfully wasteful using them once and throwing them away every day, along with the packages they come in.

Some 45 million Americans wear contact lenses. Of them, 15 million wear daily disposables. Statistics show that 10 to 15 percent of those 45 million are flushing their contacts down the toilet or sink! Between six and 10 metric tons of plastic lenses are ending up in U.S. wastewater plants every year, adding to the problem of microplastics in oceans, lakes and even commercial bottled water. Click here to read more horrifying pieces of information on this subject!

I have found the solution to the guilt! Terracycle now has a partnership with Bausch + Lomb to recycle any brand of contacts and the blister packs they come in! And not just recycle – they are able to take the materials of the contacts and the plastic portion of the blister packs and turn it into recycled plastic material!

The process is very simple – just create a container where you put all blister packs and contacts, print a free shipping label, collect them for as long as your container allows, and mail them away! Or you can drop them off at a nearby participating optometrist’s office. Click here to either sign up OR find an optometrist near you!

This is one of my most wasteful areas, and I cannot express how excited I am to finally have a better option for what to do with the trash!

Terracycle has a lot of different recycling partnerships, and I will be writing more blog posts about their programs in the future – but I highly recommend giving their website a quick browse. Maybe they have a program for something that helps you reduce the waste you create! Comment below if there is a program you see that interests you!

Elephant Trunk Moving Supplies is doing its part to reduce the number of cardboard boxes and tape ending up in landfills by offering our reusable moving boxes and supplies! We have prevented thousands of cardboard boxes from ending up in landfills, and made hundreds of people really happy with their moving experience thanks to our service!

We Really Have Been Everywhere!

So a few months ago we wrote a blog post proclaiming that we have been everywhere! Well, our owner (John) felt that blog post did not do the everywhere justice. Where is everywhere? Huh?

Well he compiled a full list of exactly where “everywhere” is! He even put them in alphabetical order! Do you see your city?

A’s

Addison, Allen, Alvarado, Anna, Argyle, Arlington, Aubrey

B’s

Balch Springs, Bedford 

C’s

Carrollton, Cedar Hill, Celina, The Colony, Commerce, Coppell

D’s

Dallas, Denton, Desoto, Double Oak, Duncanville

E’s

Euless

F’s

Fairview, Farmer’s Branch, Farmersville, Fate, Ferris, Flower Mound, Forney, Fort Worth, Frisco

G’s

Garland , Grand Prairie, Grapevine, Greenville, Gunter

H’s

Halthom City, Haslet, Heath, Hickory Creek, Highland Park, Highland Village, Hurst

I’s

Irving

K’s (no J’s yet!)

Keene, Keller

L’s

Lake Dallas, Lancaster, Lantana, Las Colinas, Lewisville, Little Elm

M’s

Mansfield, Mckinney, Melissa, Mesquite, Midlothian, Murphy

N’s 

Nevada, North Lake

P’s (no O’s yet!)

Parker, Plano, Princeton, Prosper, Providence Village

Q’s

Quinlan

R’s

Red Oak, Richardson, Richland Hills, Roanoke, Rockwall, Rowlett, Royce City

S’s

St. Paul, Sachse, Sherman, Southlake

T’s

Terrell

W’s (no U’s or V’s yet!)

Waxahachie, Whitesboro, Willow Park, Wills Point, Wylie

(No X’s, Y’s or Z’s yet!)

Our reusable moving boxes have helped hundreds of people and families move around the Metroplex in LITERALLY 82 cities! These boxes smooth the process of these moves for every step of the process. The packing itself is much easier because there is no assembly required - just put your items in, close the box, and label it! Then having to organize boxes around the house, they stack nicely when full and when empty, and they are easy to move from place to place throughout your home while packing! The moving process itself is much faster because of the handles on the boxes, and how well they stack and organize when full!

Give Elephant Trunk the opportunity to bring ease to your next Metroplex move!