How to Pack for a House Move

If you are working out how to pack for a house move, you have probably noticed that most of the advice online was written by somebody who has never carried a box down a staircase. Declutter, buy supplies, done. This is the method our crews work to when they pack a home, written for the person doing it themselves: which room goes first, how heavy each box should be, and the things that get forgotten until the van is booked.

One thing worth saying first. A home that is packed properly by the time the crew arrives does not come from rushing. It comes from the order, and from knowing when a box is finished. Both are learnable in an afternoon.

The room order that works

Anyone asking how to pack for moving really wants to know where to start, and the answer is always the same: the room you will miss least. Pack in reverse order of usefulness. The loft, the shed and the Christmas cupboard go first, the kitchen goes last, and the bathroom gets done the day before you leave.

That order does two jobs for you. It banks the easy wins while your energy and your standards are still high, and it leaves the kitchen, the hardest room in the house, for a day when nothing else is left to think about.

The open first box deserves its own note, because it is not really a packing job at all. It stays out until the last hour and travels with you in the car, never on the van, because the surest way to lose the kettle is to let it on to the lorry.

How heavy should a moving box be

The honest test: light enough that you can carry it to the van, set it down gently and still have a back left for the next one. If you have to brace your legs and exhale like a weightlifter, or the box needs two people, it is two boxes. Nobody wins a prize for a heroic book box, and the person lifting it at the other end might not be you.

The rules the crews work to:

• Small boxes for heavy things, large boxes for light things. Books, records, tinned food and tools go in small boxes. Duvets, pillows, cushions and lampshades go in large ones.
• Heavy at the bottom, light and crushable on top, always.
• Fill the gaps. A half empty box crushes when something goes on it, and crushed boxes mean crushed whatever was inside. Scrunched paper, towels and cushions are free packing material.
• Plates on their edges, never flat. On edge, a plate carries its load along the strongest plane it has. Stacked flat, every plate bears the weight of the pile above it.
• Tape the bottom as well as the top. A box fails at the seam nobody taped.
• Supermarket boxes are fine for light, soft things and a gamble for everything else. They are tired boxes, the flaps give way under real weight, and anything heavy or fragile deserves a proper double walled box.

The things people forget

Every crew has a mental list of the places things hide. Yours can borrow it:

• The loft, the shed and the garage. Out of sight for months, which is exactly why they surface on moving morning.
• Under the beds, behind the sofa, the drum of the washing machine and the back of every drawer.
• Cables and remotes. Photograph the back of the TV before you unplug it, bag the cables, and tape the bag to the device it belongs to. One labelled bag for all the remotes.
• The fixings. Every bolt, dowel and cam lock goes in a bag taped to the piece of furniture it came out of.
• Liquids. Seal bottle tops with tape, stand them upright in a bag, and bag the bag. Paints, gas cylinders and anything flammable cannot go on the van at all, so plan a safe send off for those instead of a surprise on the day.
• The freezer. Empty it and unplug it a day or two before, or it pools across the van floor and into your new kitchen.
• Labels on two sides, not the top. Tops get hidden the moment boxes are stacked. Room plus contents, in marker pen rather than pencil.

Where a crew earns its packing money

Doing it yourself works. Start early enough, follow the order above, and there is real satisfaction in opening boxes you packed yourself. What the DIY route cannot buy you is the last room: the kitchen always loses. It is the room where breakages happen, the one you use every day until the end, and the reason many people hand at least part of the packing over.

The options run from full house to kitchen only:

• Full packing service. The crew boxes the entire home, room by room, in the days before your move, including the loft. You keep out only what you genuinely need for the last night.
• Fragile only packing. You handle clothes, books and linen while a trained crew takes the kitchen, the TVs, the mirrors and everything breakable. It is the most popular middle ground.
• Self pack, with our materials. You do the packing, we still deliver the boxes, tape, bubble wrap and wardrobe cartons in advance, in the quantities your home actually needs, and we wrap and move every item of furniture on the day.

Whichever it is, the crew that packs your home is the same trained, uniformed crew that loads, transports and unpacks it, and the packing sits on the same fixed quote as the move. The full detail sits on our packing services in London page, and if you are still at the planning stage, the packing slots into the wider timeline in our moving house checklist.

Ready when you are

However far you get with the boxes, the move itself starts with a survey: a video call or a walk through of about twenty minutes, then a fixed written quote, with the price we agreed and nothing added on the day. Where our prices land is published openly in the removals cost guide, and the full service sits on our house removals in London page.

Prefer to talk first? Call 0207 846 0282 or email info@avivremovals.com. Tell us the home and the date, and be honest about how much of the packing you fancy - then we will price the rest.

Written by Adam, owner of Aviv Removals - 15 years in the removals trade.