Resources
Packing tips worth the two minutes
Short tips, grouped by theme. None of them take long and all of them save something on the other end. If you want the full method instead of the highlights, the room-by-room version is on our how to pack page.
Boxes and weight
- Small box, heavy things. Large box, light things. This one rule prevents most failed boxes.
- Tape the bottom seam and then tape across it again at right angles. The bottom is where boxes give out.
- Fill every box to the top. Air is what lets contents shift, and a half-empty box collapses when something is stacked on it.
- A box that rattles is not packed. Add paper until it does not.
- Uniform box sizes stack. Mismatched boxes make a truck load that has to be built around them.
- Reused boxes from a supermarket are usually the wrong strength and the wrong shape, and produce boxes are often damp.
- If you cannot pick it up and walk ten feet with it, it is too heavy for a stairway.
Fragile things
- Wrap each item on its own. Two glasses wrapped together are two broken glasses.
- Pad the bottom and the top of the box, not just the middle.
- Plates on edge, like records in a crate. Flat plates crack from the weight above them.
- A lid is the weakest part of anything ceramic. Wrap lids separately and tape them nowhere near the finish.
- Mirrors and glass tabletops need corner protection and travel upright, never flat under other items.
- Tape an X across a large pane only if the glass is going in a proper carton, and never put tape on a finished frame or a painted surface.
- Anything irreplaceable is better in your own car than on any truck.
Furniture and the big awkward items
- Measure the item and measure the doorway. Do it before move day, not while four people are holding it.
- Take the legs off anything that has removable legs. It changes what fits around a corner.
- Empty file cabinets and dressers if the drawers are heavy, and never move a loaded filing cabinet.
- Tape drawers shut only with something that will not lift the finish, or wrap the whole piece instead.
- Photograph anything with visible wear before it moves, so there is a record of how it looked.
- Flag the pieces that need special handling when you get your quote: piano, safe, pool table, oversized tank, treadmill.
- If a piece was assembled inside the room and has never been through a doorway, say so early.
Cables, screws and the parts that vanish
- Photograph the back of every device before you unplug it.
- One bag per device for its cables, labelled with the device name.
- Hardware from a piece of furniture gets taped to that piece, not put in a communal bag of screws.
- Remote controls go in the box with the thing they control, or they will not be seen again until spring.
- Keep one small toolkit out of every box: a screwdriver, an allen key set, a utility knife, a tape measure.
- Label the ends of anything that has to plug back into a specific port.
Clothes, linens and soft things
- Hanging clothes stay on their hangers, bundled in groups and bagged. Rehanging then takes minutes.
- Towels, quilts and coats are packing material you already own. Use them around anything with a corner.
- Do not wrap dishes in clothing you will want to wear that week.
- Vacuum bags are excellent for out-of-season clothes and terrible for anything with structure, like tailored jackets.
- Shoes go in a box of their own, not on top of clothes.
- Bag bedding by bed and label it. Making beds on the first night should not require a search.
Time and sanity
- Pack one room at a time and finish it. Half-packed rooms multiply.
- Start with what you have not touched in a year. It is easy, it builds momentum, and half of it should not be coming.
- Two hours a night for two weeks beats one heroic weekend, every time.
- Anything you are unsure about goes in a maybe pile, and the maybe pile gets a deadline.
- The last box you pack should be the first one you open. Mark it and load it last.
- Whatever you decide not to take should physically leave the house before move day.
Tips only get you so far
At some point somebody has to carry the sofa down the stairs. Free quotes, no obligation, seven days a week.