I am Megan Pettinger. I coordinate moves and storage, and packing is the part I get asked about most. Most guides sort your stuff by how breakable it is and leave you frozen in the kitchen. I do it the other way: take the house the way you live in it, one room at a time, and fit the packing to what each room is up against.
Get your supplies sorted first
Before you touch a single room, lay in the right materials. A flimsy box fails first on a basement stairwell, and cheap tape lets go inside a hot cargo hold.
- Boxes in two sizes — small for heavy items so the stairwell stays manageable, large for light and bulky things
- Real packing paper and bubble wrap, plus tape that holds when the truck warms up in July sun
- A fat marker and one color per room, written down the side of the box, not just the top
- Wardrobe boxes so hanging clothes ride upright on the bar instead of wadding up
- A separate go-bag — meds, chargers, fresh clothes, the coffee maker — taped shut last so it comes off first
One rule for every box in the house
Pack nothing heavier than one person can carry down a flight of stairs without leaning on the wall — for most of us that lands around 40 to 50 pounds. Whatever already strains your arms on level ground is exactly what gives out mid-turn on a tight daylight-basement stairwell. That is why heavy goods go in small boxes and light bulk goes in big ones.
Kitchen: pack for the I-90 grades
Start here, because the kitchen holds the most breakable cargo and the most that goes wrong on a highway pull. The moment the truck crests and drops the grades on I-90, anything loose starts knocking.
- Stand plates on edge, leaning together like records in a crate — upright they shrug off the road, stacked flat they crack
- Wrap each glass in its own paper before it goes in the box
- Keep dish boxes small so they stay under the weight cap
- Mark them fragile so they load last and come off first
Bedrooms: empty the dressers
The bedrooms are the easiest rooms in the house if you treat them right. A packed dresser is dead weight on a narrow basement stair, and the crew speeds up the moment it rides hollow.
Pull every drawer empty before we arrive. Then put soft goods to work: clothes, sheets, and blankets are free padding for fragile items in other rooms, and a wardrobe box slides hanging clothes to the new closet without a wrinkle. In a two-story Spokane home, this is where you save the most time.
Living room: photograph the wiring
The living room is electronics and awkward furniture, and both repay a little prep — doubly in August heat.
Snap a photo of the back of every device — TV, receiver, the router and its nest of cables — before you unplug anything. Wiring it back later takes minutes, not a ruined evening. Stand flat-panels upright in a TV box, never flat: a screen on its face rarely survives the grades. Keep anything with a display out of a sun-baked truck.
Bathroom and garage: the rooms that snag people
Finish where folks get caught out. These rooms hold things that need careful handling and a few that cannot ride the truck at all.
- Liquids can ride, sealed only. Bag every bottle and tighten the lids so a split shampoo cannot soak a box of towels somewhere over Fourth of July Pass.
- Anything hazardous stays behind, no exceptions. Solvents, propane, paint, lawn chemicals — federal rules keep all of it off the truck. Use it up, give it away, or run it to disposal before move day. A baking truck is the last place for a propane cylinder.
- The piano and the gun safe belong to the crew. Brett gets uprights, baby grands, and gun safes down a daylight-basement stairwell and across an icy porch on padded skids and stair dollies — never two friends and a hand truck.
- The whole job, if that suits you. When packing outruns your weekend, our full packing service boxes and labels every room — china to garage bins — and rides inside the flat rate already on your quote.
If you would rather see the whole house at a glance, here is the breakdown.
| The room | What it holds | How to pack it for the road |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | Plates, glasses, stemware, pantry | Plates on edge, small boxes, marked fragile for the grades |
| Bedrooms | Clothes, sheets, dressers, beds | Empty the drawers, wardrobe boxes, soft goods as padding |
| Living room | TV, receiver, cables, awkward furniture | Photograph the panels, screens upright, out of the hot truck |
| Bath & garage | Liquids, chemicals, piano, safe, tools | Bag and seal liquids, pull hazardous goods, heavy pieces to the crew |
The room tells you what you are up against; the weight cap and the road tell you how to pack it. Take the house in order and your things arrive unmarked, down the basement stairs and over the grades. — Dave Pettinger
FAQ
When should I start packing?
About two weeks out. Lead with the rooms you rarely use — the garage, the guest closet, the off-season clothes — then work toward the everyday rooms, saving the kitchen, the bathroom, and that go-bag for last.
Can your team pack the whole house?
Gladly — that is what our full packing service is for. A W-2 crew from our roster boxes and labels room by room so nothing turns up damaged, and the work rides inside the single flat rate already on your quote.
Take the house in sequence — kitchen, bedrooms, living room, then the snag rooms — keep every box light enough for the basement stairs, and leave the heaviest and most fragile pieces to us. Everything lands at the new place unmarked, down the stairs and over the I-90 grades, hot August and all.