Packing a home comes down to four moving box sizes, a count taken off your own shelves, and roughly three weeks of evenings. A two-bedroom in Los Angeles or Orange County usually takes 40 to 50 cartons. Almost everything that goes wrong on moving day traces back to containers bought late, filled too heavy, or filled with two rooms at once. This is the sequence our crews follow, written for the household packing itself.
Four moving box sizes cover an ordinary household, and each is sold by the volume it encloses rather than by the name printed on the label. Uline's packing box page publishes all four in a single table, with a suggested use printed beside each one.
Those suggested uses are a density ranking rather than a filing system: the list runs deliberately from heavy contents to light ones, because every carton has to be liftable at the far end of the job.
For example, a run of hardbacks and a shelf of bath towels occupy roughly the same space on the shelf. Loaded into the same 6-cubic-foot container, one of them becomes a two-person lift and the other is nothing at all.
Two containers in a household pack are not really boxes. A dish pack is the deep, double-walled barrel that china and glassware travel in, and our guide to packing dishes and glasses fills one step by step. A wardrobe box carries clothes on a bar so they arrive still hanging, and wardrobe boxes for moving explains why you probably should not buy any.
Your carton count comes off your own shelves rather than off a bedroom count. Below is the spread we load out of homes around Los Angeles and Orange County, and it is a spread rather than a promise about your particular household.
None of those figures include the dish packs, the wardrobe boxes, or the suitcases you were always going to fill anyway.
Want your own number instead? Measure. Multiply each shelf's width by its depth by the height of whatever actually stands on it, in inches, then divide by 1,728 for cubic feet. Divide that result by the carton size suited to the contents, and round upward. Round up once per cupboard or bookcase rather than once per shelf, and never combine two rooms in a single container.
Consider a kitchen shelf 24 inches wide and 12 inches deep, carrying plates and bowls stacked 10 inches high. That encloses 2,880 cubic inches, which converts to about 1.7 cubic feet, a little over half a medium carton. Work through a dozen shelves that way and the total is a number you can actually order against.
Whatever figure you arrive at, the storage you cannot see is what pulls it low: the garage, the shelf above the closet rail, the bins under the bed, the hall cupboard. Add a fifth to your first estimate and purchase that many, because running short on packing night costs an evening while a spare flat carton costs almost nothing. If you would rather not buy them all, free moving boxes in Southern California covers where they genuinely come from around here.
A packed carton has to stay liftable, and that ceiling arrives well before the container looks full. We work to roughly 50 pounds, which is approximately what a person carries down a flight of stairs without setting the container down or changing grip. Hardbacks reach that at half a small carton.
Test the lift while you can still do something about it. Pick the container up before you tape it, because a box that feels awkward on the floor of the bedroom is considerably worse in a second-floor walk-up in Long Beach.
Then deal with whatever space is left inside. Void fill is the crumpled paper that occupies the gaps once the last item goes in, and a carton without it collapses under the weight of the one stacked above. Run a hand down the interior walls, push paper into everything you find, and close the flaps flat, since a domed box will not stack and a truck is loaded floor to roof.
Two habits save more grief than any material does. Write the room and a line of contents on two sides of the container rather than the top, because the top is the face a stack hides. Then keep one room per carton even when space is left over, since a box belonging to two rooms gets carried to neither.
Three weeks is what a household genuinely needs to pack itself, and the sequence matters considerably more than the hours. Work from the rooms you use least toward the rooms you cook and sleep in. Our crews follow the same order on a packing service, and the reason is simple: your last night at home should not be spent camped among sealed cartons.
Reckon on two or three evenings a room, and rather more for the kitchen and the garage. A professional crew works considerably faster because packing is what they do every week, so a studio goes in a morning and a house in a day, occasionally two.
One errand belongs in that first week as well. Some cities need a permit for the truck and some do not, so telephone your city's parking desk, or send us the address and we will check it while we prepare your quote. Our guide to moving truck parking sets out what to ask and how much curb a 24-foot truck occupies.
Purchase the cartons yourself, because they have to stand in your hallway long before packing day. Our crews carry the protective materials on the truck, and that timing is where people get caught out.
Your shopping list is short: cartons in the four sizes weighted toward small and medium, two dish packs for the kitchen, a couple of thick markers, and a bundle of unprinted newsprint. Unprinted newsprint is blank newspaper stock sold in sheets, and it is what belongs around plates and glassware, because the ink on an actual newspaper transfers onto whatever it touches.
What comes with us on a quoted move is unlimited wrap and tape, speed-pack boxes, up to 8 loaner wardrobe boxes, thick moving blankets, door shields and floor runners, none of it charged. Everything on that list arrives with the crew on packing day, which is the wrong week entirely for the cartons you meant to fill over three weekends.
Some belongings cannot travel on a moving truck at all, and discovering which ones at 8am costs you a morning. Separate them in week one and deal with them on their own.
Houseplants are their own conversation, and they generally travel best in your own car. Everything on the list above except the ammunition belongs at a county collection site, where residents leave it at no charge; the county programs refuse ammunition outright, so that one needs a call before you put it in the car. Los Angeles County runs free household hazardous waste events as well as permanent sites. Orange County keeps four centers, in Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Irvine and San Juan Capistrano, and the collection center details list the hours and what each site accepts.
The barbecue cylinder and the half-used gallon of deck stain are a simple errand three weeks out, and a genuine problem on the morning a truck is waiting at the curb.
Your carton count belongs in the quote, because packing is priced on crew size and hours like everything else we do. Tell us approximately how many containers you expect, which rooms you intend to pack yourself, and how long the walk from the door to the truck is at either end.
A partial pack is the booking where our crew takes the rooms you name and you keep the rest. Most households hand over the kitchen and the closets, since those two swallow a weekend between them. Say which rooms when you ask for a figure, because the split changes the crew before it changes anything else.
A local crew starts from $119/hr for two movers and a 24-foot truck, and each additional mover on a large packing job is $40/hr. The estimate cap is the part that matters once your count is in: the final bill will not pass the written figure you approved. What a move costs sets out the rest of what moves that number.
Call (818) 391-8215 or send us the details, and the estimate comes back in writing. There is no deposit on standard bookings; same-day and last-minute bookings may require a deposit, confirmed with your quote. There is more about us elsewhere on the site. AG Moving&Storage is a family-owned local mover working across Los Angeles and Orange County, licensed as USDOT 3610341 · CAL-T192465 · CA 602741 · MC 1525501.
Four sizes cover an ordinary household, and each one is sold by the volume it holds rather than by the word on the label. Uline publishes them at 16 by 12 by 12 inches for 1.5 cubic feet, 18 by 18 by 16 for 3 cubic feet, 18 by 18 by 24 for 4.5, and 22 by 22 by 22 for 6. Dense things go in the smallest carton and light bulky things go in the largest. Books, tools and tinned food belong in the 1.5; pillows, duvets and towels belong in the 6.
Plan on 40 to 50 cartons for a two-bedroom, plus a couple of dish packs for the kitchen and whatever your hanging clothes take. A one-bedroom usually lands between 25 and 35. Those are the ranges we load out of homes that size, not a promise about yours, and the garage decides which end you sit at. For a real number, measure your own shelves and cupboards instead of counting bedrooms.
Light enough to carry down a flight of stairs without setting it down or changing your grip. We keep cartons under roughly 50 pounds, and a small box of hardbacks reaches that long before it looks full. If you need two hands under the bottom and a knee to hold it, split the contents across two containers. Carton size is a weight decision rather than a volume one.
Our crews pack a studio in a morning and a house in a full day, occasionally two. Doing it yourself runs much longer than people expect, so reckon on two or three evenings a room spread across three weeks. Start in the rooms you use least and finish in the kitchen and bedrooms. That order means nothing you packed early is something you need before the truck arrives.
Unlimited wrap and tape, speed-pack boxes, up to 8 loaner wardrobe boxes, thick moving blankets, door shields and floor runners come with a quoted move at no extra cost, and kitchens get unprinted paper so ink never touches a plate. All of it travels with the crew and arrives on packing day. The cartons you fill yourself over the preceding weeks are the ones you buy, because they have to stand in your hallway long before we get there.
