Packing is the most requested addition to a move and the most vaguely understood. People picture a crew putting things in boxes, which is roughly a third of it. The rest is materials, sequencing, labelling and the specific handling that fragile items need to survive being lifted twice and driven once.
Here is what is actually inside the scope.
The three scopes
Full pack. The crew arrives ahead of move day and packs the entire home — kitchen, closets, books, art, garage, the cupboard nobody has opened in two years. You pack only your own essentials: toothbrush, medication, work laptop, the child's bedtime things. On move day the truck loads a house that is already in cartons.
Partial pack. The crew takes the rooms where self-packing goes wrong and you take the rest. In practice that almost always means the kitchen plus anything fragile, because those are the two categories that produce damage. Everything soft and unbreakable stays with you.
Fragile or specialty only. A defined list rather than a room: artwork, mirrors, china, glassware, electronics, instruments, collections. Often includes purpose-built crating for the pieces that a carton cannot protect.
The choice between full and partial is a real decision with consequences beyond convenience — we cover it in full-service vs. partial packing.
What the materials cover
A packing scope should include the materials, not add them afterwards. Ask for the list in writing. It normally covers:
- Cartons in every size — small for books and anything dense, medium and large for general contents, dish packs with double walls for the kitchen, wardrobe cartons with a rail so hanging clothes travel hung, and flat mirror or picture cartons that telescope to fit.
- Packing paper, plain and unprinted, for wrapping. Newsprint transfers ink to anything porcelain or light coloured.
- Tape, and enough of it. A carton taped along the seam and across it holds a load; one strip does not.
- Bubble and foam for electronics, screens and anything with a corner that can be knocked.
- Blankets and stretch wrap for furniture and anything that is padded rather than boxed.
- Labelling, which is the part people underestimate — every carton marked with its destination room and, on a good crew, its number against an inventory.
What the labour actually is
The work is not lifting. It is decisions made quickly and correctly, hundreds of times.
Plates travel on edge, not stacked flat, because a plate resists force through its rim and shatters through its face. Glasses get wrapped individually and go upright in a divided carton, not nested. Books go in small cartons because a large one full of books is a carton that fails and a back that regrets it. Lamp shades never take weight. Anything liquid is either not going or is bagged and upright. Screens go flat only if the manufacturer says flat; most say vertical.
Then the sequencing: rooms are packed in the order the truck will want them, cartons are staged where they will not block the load path, and the last things packed are the things you will need first at the other end.
An inventory comes out of this — every carton numbered, labelled by room, and listed. That list is what lets you know at the destination whether everything arrived, and it is the difference between "I think we are missing a box" and "carton thirty-one is not here."
What is normally quoted separately
Not everything belongs inside a standard packing line. Expect these to be priced on their own:
- Custom wooden crating for high-value antiques, large or irregular artwork, stone and glass tops, and anything genuinely irreplaceable. A crate is built to the piece.
- Long-term or climate-sensitive crating for items going into storage rather than straight to a destination.
- Disposal of what you decide not to keep. A packing crew packs; junk removal and donation runs are a separate service and a separate vehicle.
- Unpacking at the destination, if you want it. It is a real scope of its own and it is worth deciding on rather than assuming either way.
- Reassembly of anything that was taken apart, where that is more than the usual bed frames and table legs.
When handing it over earns its cost
The calendar does not have room in it. If you cannot take days off to pack, evenings and weekends will not close the gap, and a half-packed house on move-day morning is the most expensive outcome available.
You own things that punish improvisation. Dishes, stemware, art, screens, instruments, collections. Wrapping fragile items in towels is the single most reliable way to produce a damaged item and an unwinnable conversation about it afterwards. It also matters for coverage: cartons packed by the customer are typically treated differently from cartons packed by the crew, and you want to know exactly how before you choose.
Lifting is not a good idea for the person doing it. Reaching top shelves off a chair, sitting on a floor wrapping glassware, and carrying loaded cartons is physical work. For an older adult or anyone recovering, it is the part of the move that causes the injury. See senior moving.
The route is long. A longer haul means more hours of vibration and more handling. Packing that would survive a short local move is not automatically packing that survives a long-distance route.
When it does not
You have time and you are able. Packing yourself is genuinely the most economical option and plenty of people do it well. Start earlier than feels necessary and buy proper cartons rather than collecting supermarket ones, which are the wrong strength and the wrong sizes.
Your contents are mostly soft. Clothes, linen and books are the easiest things in the house to pack. Put the budget where the risk is — the kitchen and the fragile list — and self-pack the rest.
You are downsizing hard. If half the house is not coming, a crew packing through undecided piles adds friction and packs things you will then pay to move and then discard. Sort first, then bring packers in for what is staying.
What to have decided before the crew arrives
- Which rooms are in scope, written down, so nothing is packed that should not be and nothing is skipped that should not be.
- What is not going at all — the non-allowables and the things that ride with you. Set them aside in a closed room and say so at the start.
- Where things go at the other end. Labels are only useful if they name a room that exists at the destination.
- What needs a crate, flagged in advance so the materials are on the truck rather than a problem on the day.
- Whether you are packing your own personal carton. Most people do, and the crew works around it — it just needs to be visible.
Do you need to be home? For the first part, yes: walk the crew through what stays, what goes and what is off limits. After that you can leave them to it.
Tell us the home, the rooms you want in scope, and the fragile list, and we will come back with the packing and the move together in writing. Start your move brief, or call 778-994-2303. For the service itself, see packing services.