And what is wrong with writing on the box in either magic markers, or if you want colors, crayons?

CT Reader: And what would be wrong with READING the entry BEFORE commenting on it?

"No doubt we could have accomplished something similar with a handful of colored Sharpies, but it would have taken a lot of consistently careful writing to even approach the same effect—at a time when we were looking to make less work, not more..."

You can accomplish the same thing with the vast array of colored duct tape available today. You can stick a piece of the same color on the door to each room.

"And what is wrong with writing on the box in either magic markers, or if you want colors, crayons?"

And what is wrong with pricking your finger and using smeared blood to write on the boxes....

"You can accomplish the same thing with the vast array of colored duct tape available today."

Ummmm... What do you think this is?

People: $12 for 6 rolls of conviently labeled and colored tape is a good deal. Stop complaining.

$1 or $12, seems like an easy choice.
On packing day I carry 1 pen or 6 rolls of tape?

So, I guess these colored tapes are for people who (a) cannot write "BEDROOM" or "KITCHEN" and cannot read?
Moving is a big pain in the neck as it is, and keeping track of 6 rolls of tape between 3 or 4 people is just going to make the job that much harder. Give everyone a sharpie and be done with it.
Captcha: frat nun

Seems like a good idea to me - I have a garage full of boxes from various moves, really hard to tell what is what especially when they are stacked and you can't see the spot that is written on.

Solves a problem for some people elegantly - and if when you move house $11 is a big issue then you probably don't have much stuff to move

this is brilliant. You drop a bunch of boxes and a roll of tape in each room, fill, seal and go!!!

Elegant solution indeed, and $2/roll is really a great price.

Indeed, while a "unitasker," this is a great idea. For those asking why one person can't just use a marker for every box, remember that the stuff INSIDE the boxes has to originate somewhere - likely the room that corresponds in the new house. So in that event, your "bedroom" roll goes in the master and anything that went in a box from your master gets labeled as such. No worries "carrying around 6 rolls of tape."

Having just moved, what this does is standardize what goes where and anyone can move it. Instead of having to turn each box around to find the one side where the location is written (or, alternately, having to re-label used/recycled boxes from a previous move), you can - just from the color and the tape - know where it goes. As the organizer of the move, this format would help a TON in organizing your help - no more friends or family asking "so where do you want this one?"

I thought it was $12 dollars a role! I'm glad I read the comments. For $2 bucks a role I would do this simply because it looks neat. And you cannot deny that it would be much easier to dig through stacks of boxes. I agree that it may not be needed but one could argue that either is the iPhone you wrote your comments from but darn it, it sure is neat.

The comments do not seem to be criticizing the utility, but the economy of the solution. Fair enough, I read "Hack A Day" and for every project involving an Arduino board there's a peanut gallery mentioning how two diodes and a rubber band accomplish the same thing.

I say it's a Cool Tool, despite being fairly cheap in some ways about these things. Personally, I do the masking tape + Sharpie myself but color-coding CANNOT be overlooked as a key feature here. A stick of tape over the intended doorway and even people with the inability to read your writing can figure out where to dump a box. So +1 Cool Tool

-Subsets Immediately

and what do i do with leftover tape after the move? or i run out of "bedroom" labelled tape?

i can see that this would be useful if i had a mansion-full of stuff to move. it's safe to say i do not fall in this category. sharpies would do the trick well enough.

now if someone can come up with a printer for customizing packaging tape, you'll have my undivided attention: i'll be printing "police line:do not cross" tapes all day.

@ chudez:

"and what do i do with leftover tape after the move?"

You use it as tape and ignore the writing.

"or i run out of "bedroom" labelled tape?"

Use your trusty Sharpie.

"now if someone can come up with a printer for customizing packaging tape, you'll have my undivided attention"

Yeah, that should definitely save you some time....

"i'll be printing "police line:do not cross" tapes all day."

umm... weird, but you can buy that on Amazon already.

Be careful what it comes into contact with.

During my last moves some of my friends volunteered to help me move and I provided the tape.

Only problem is the gentleman responsible for packing the kitchen used it on EVERYTHING.

Worried about the kitchen knives shifting loose in a box? Tape Em.
Worried about the Microwave parts opening? Tape Em.
Want to make a neat bundle of the antique sushi trays? Tape em.

Problem is the tape comes of but the bright yellow stays behind, resistant to very nearly every cleaning agent known to man.

Now amount of scrubbing with every product known to man nor multiple runs through the dishwasher made my silverware yellow and sticky free. Finally after months of despair I discovered by accident that a Mr.Clean magic eraser takes it off.

You have been warned.

After just spending a day with the movers and my elderly parents... We needed this. It might be THE BEST THING EVER if you are moving.

It is not how smart or aware the person packing the box is. It is not how smart and aware you are. It is how obvious the box is to the minimum-wage-non-english-speaker is when it is coming off the truck.

Again, Cool Tools brings a great product to the readers!