How to pack a house properly

The two rules

Heavy things go in small boxes, light things go in big boxes. A carton of books that a person can't lift is a carton that gets dropped, and the bottom falls out of an overfilled box every time.

And fill every box to the top. Empty space is what lets contents move, and movement is what breaks things. If you run out of contents, fill the gap with paper or a towel.

Pack in this order

Work from the rooms you use least to the rooms you use most. Storage and the garage first, then the spare room, then books and decorations, then the study, then bedrooms, then the kitchen, and finally the bathroom on the last morning.

The kitchen

This is a third of the whole job. Budget a full day for it and use good cartons, not supermarket boxes.

• Plates go on their edge, standing up like records, with paper between each one. Flat-stacked plates crack under their own weight.
• Glasses and stemware get wrapped individually and stand upright, never on their side.
• Line the bottom and top of every fragile carton with crushed paper.
• Knives get wrapped, taped and labelled. Someone unpacks that box in a hurry.
• Bottles and anything that can leak go upright in a lined box, in a bag, not on their side among the linen.

Bedrooms

Clothes can stay in most chests of drawers — we wrap them shut. Hanging clothes go straight from the wardrobe into wardrobe cartons on the hanger, which takes minutes and saves you ironing everything at the other end. Doonas and pillows go in big boxes or bags: they're bulky but weigh nothing, so they're useful for filling out a large carton.

Electronics and screens

Original boxes are best if you kept them. Otherwise use a purpose-made TV carton — a flat screen in a blanket on a truck floor is asking for it. Photograph the back of your TV and computer before you unplug anything, and put cables in a labelled bag taped to the device they belong to.

Labelling that actually helps

Write the destination room, not the room it came from — that's what tells the crew where to put it. Add two or three words on the contents, mark fragile boxes on the side rather than the top, and number your boxes so you know if one is missing before the truck leaves.

Six mistakes we see constantly

1. Using supermarket boxes. They're weak, they're inconsistent sizes so they don't stack, and they collapse when stacked.
2. One enormous box of books. Nobody can lift it and it will fail at the bottom.
3. Not taping the base of the carton properly. Two strips across the seam, minimum.
4. Leaving the garage until the last day. It's always more than you think.
5. Packing liquids, paint, gas bottles or aerosols. Removalists can't carry them and they ruin whatever they're packed with.
6. Putting the kettle, the phone chargers and the toilet paper on the truck. Keep the first-night box with you.

How many boxes will I need?

As a rough guide, 15 to 20 cartons per bedroom once the kitchen and living areas are spread across the total. A two-bedroom unit usually lands around 30 to 40 boxes; a three-bedroom house around 50 to 70. Get more than you think and return the unused ones.