I am Nicole Foster. I coordinate moves and storage, and packing is what people ask me about most. The usual guides sort everything by how breakable it is and leave you stuck in the kitchen. I do it the other way: take the house room by room, and pack each space for what it is up against down here.
Sort your supplies first
Before you touch a single room, lay in the right materials. A flimsy box fails on a Victoria Park stairwell, and cheap tape lets go inside a hundred-degree cargo hold.
- Boxes in two sizes — small for heavy things so the stairs stay manageable, large for light and bulky
- Real packing paper and bubble wrap, plus tape that holds when the truck bakes at noon
- 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 instead of wadding into a wrinkled heap
- A 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, 40 to 50 pounds. Florida homes have no basements, so everything rides ground floor, stairs, or elevator. Whatever strains your arms on level ground gives out mid-turn on a tight stairwell. Heavy goods go in small boxes, light bulk in big ones.
Kitchen: pack for the I-95 pull
Start here. The kitchen holds the most breakable cargo and the most that knocks loose on a highway run up I-95 or the Turnpike.
- 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 if you treat them right. A packed dresser is dead weight on a narrow stair, and the crew speeds up the moment it rides hollow.
Empty out every drawer before the crew shows up. Then let your soft goods work: clothes, sheets, and blankets cushion breakables in other rooms, and a wardrobe box carries hanging shirts to the new closet wrinkle-free. In a two-story Sailboat Bend or Coral Ridge 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 South Florida heat.
Before a single cord comes loose, photograph the back of each device — the TV, the receiver, the router and its cables. With the picture in hand, reconnecting later is a five-minute job, not a lost evening. Stand flat-panels upright in a TV box, never flat, and keep screens out of a sun-baked truck till the end.
The piano: this one is ours
If a piano lives in your home, stop here. This is the one room of the house you do not pack, prep, or carry. It is the whole reason we exist.
Never let two friends and a hand truck near a grand. Victor boards uprights, baby grands, and church organs and gets them down a Victoria Park staircase or up to a 20th-floor Intracoastal condo on padded skids — the legs off, the finish wrapped, the humidity handled. — Dominic Russo
Leave the piano fully alone: no shifting it toward the door, no taping the lid, no wrapping it yourself. The crew measures the route, removes the legs and lyre, and rides the body on a piano board. In this humidity it travels and stores climate-controlled so the action and strings come through untouched.
Bathroom and garage: the snag rooms
Finish where people get caught out. These rooms hold things that need care and a few that cannot ride the truck at all.
- Liquids ride sealed only. Bag every bottle and tighten the lids so a split shampoo cannot soak a box of towels somewhere on the Turnpike.
- Hazardous goods stay behind, no exceptions. Solvents, propane, paint, pool chemicals — federal rules keep all of it off the truck. Burn through what you can, pass the rest to a neighbor, or drop it at a disposal site ahead of move day. A propane cylinder has no business riding in a hundred-degree hold.
- The heavy pieces are the crew’s. Andre and the team get gun safes, marble tops, and oversized furniture down the stairs and across a hot porch on skids and stair dollies — never improvised on the day.
- The whole job, if you want it. If the packing swallows more time than your weekend has, our full packing service handles every room from the china cabinet to the garage bins, boxed and labeled, with the cost folded into the flat rate already on your quote.
If you would rather see the whole house at a glance, here it is.
| 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 I-95 pull |
| 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 |
| Piano | Grand, baby grand, upright, organ | Hands off — the crew boards it, legs off, climate-controlled |
| Bath & garage | Liquids, chemicals, safe, tools | Bag and seal liquids, pull hazardous goods, heavy pieces to the crew |
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 the go-bag for last.
Will you pack the entire place for me?
Happy to — packing the whole house is exactly what the full packing service covers. Movers on our own roster work room by room, boxing and labeling as they go so nothing arrives dented or cracked, and that labor is already built into the one flat rate on your quote.
Take the house in sequence — kitchen, bedrooms, living room, then the snag rooms — keep every box light enough for a tight staircase, leave the piano and the heavy pieces to us, and everything lands at the new place unmarked, down the stairs and up I-95, hot Broward afternoon and all.