Good packing tips for moving house can save you more time than any other part of the move. Booking the van and picking a date feels like the big decision, but it’s the boxes that eat the hours — and in our experience, most of the stress on moving day comes from packing that wasn’t finished, not from the removal itself. Here’s how we’d tackle it, room by room, based on what we see going wrong (and right) on Devon moves week after week.
Packing Tips for Moving House: Where to Start
Start with the rooms and items you touch least often. The loft, the garage, the shed, and any spare room are the obvious first targets, ideally four to six weeks before completion. These are also the places where Devon properties tend to store more than most — sheds full of gardening kit for a bigger plot, lofts with decades of accumulated boxes in older cottages and farmhouses. Getting an early start here means the final week is about clothes, kitchen essentials, and the things you actually use, not a mad scramble through everything at once.
Work through the house in this rough order:
- Loft, garage, shed, spare room (four to six weeks out)
- Books, ornaments, out-of-season clothes, spare bedding (three to four weeks out)
- Kitchen items you don’t use daily — the slow cooker, the good glasses, the seasonal baking tins (two to three weeks out)
- Everything else except daily essentials (final week)
- Essentials box, packed last, unpacked first
Room by Room
Kitchen. Wrap plates vertically, like records in a crate, rather than stacking them flat — it spreads the weight and reduces breakages. Use paper or bubble wrap between each one. Glasses and mugs go in individually wrapped, packed tightly so nothing shifts in transit. Keep a “last week” box for the kettle, a couple of mugs, cutlery, and a saucepan, and don’t tape it shut until moving morning.
Living room. Books are heavy — use small boxes, never large ones, or you’ll end up with something nobody can lift safely. Ornaments and picture frames need individual wrapping and should go in a box marked “fragile” on every visible side, not just the top. Flat-pack anything that can come apart, and keep the screws in a labelled sandwich bag taped to the item itself so nothing goes missing.
Bedrooms. Wardrobe boxes let you move hanging clothes straight across without folding, which saves a surprising amount of time. Bedding and out-of-season clothes can go into vacuum bags to save space in the van. Strip beds the morning of the move, not before — you’ll need somewhere to sleep until then.
Bathroom. Pack toiletries in a sealed box or crate, ideally something leak-proof, since a burst bottle of shampoo can ruin whatever’s packed alongside it. Keep a small bag of essentials — toothbrush, medication, a towel — with you rather than in the van.
Garden and shed. This is where Devon moves differ a bit from a straightforward city flat move. Plant pots, tools, and outdoor furniture add up fast if you’ve got any kind of garden, which most Devon properties do. Empty pots of soil where you can (it’s heavy and often not worth moving), drain fuel from mowers and strimmers before they go on the van, and wrap anything with a blade or sharp edge properly.
Fragile Items and Devon-Specific Considerations
Fragile items need more than “fragile” written on the box — they need proper wrapping inside it too, with nothing loose that can move during transit. For anything particularly valuable or awkward — a piano, an antique, a large mirror — it’s worth asking your removal company to handle it directly rather than pre-packing it yourself. We offer dedicated piano moves and antique moves for exactly this reason.
One thing that catches people out on rural Devon moves: boxes often have to survive being carried further than they would in a typical terraced street. A narrow lane with no through access for the van, a gravel driveway, or a farmhouse set back from the road all mean more distance on foot between the front door and the vehicle. Reinforce the bottom of any box with fragile contents, and don’t overfill boxes so heavily that the base gives way halfway down the drive.
A Labelling System That Actually Works
The single biggest improvement most people can make to their own packing is a proper labelling system. “Kitchen” on every box tells the removal team nothing useful when there are twelve kitchen boxes. Instead:
- Number every box and keep a simple list (a notebook or a phone note) of what’s in each one
- Write the destination room on the new house, not just the room it came from
- Mark fragile boxes clearly on at least two sides, not just the top
- Colour-code by room with coloured tape or stickers if you want the unloading team to place boxes correctly without asking
This system means that when the van is being unloaded, boxes go straight to the right room in the new house rather than piling up in the hallway for you to sort later.
Packing Materials: Buy or Borrow?
Proper packing materials cost money, but poor-quality boxes and thin bin bags cost more in breakages. Double-walled boxes, decent tape, and bubble wrap for anything fragile are worth the outlay. If you’d rather not source materials yourself, we can supply everything as part of our removal service, and any unused materials can usually be returned.
Or Let Us Pack for You
If packing everything yourself isn’t realistic — because of work, family, or simply not having the time — our packing and unpacking service covers the whole job or just the parts you’d rather hand over, whether that’s the kitchen glassware, the loft, or the entire house. We use proper materials, pack to a professional standard, and everything is labelled clearly so unloading at the other end is straightforward. It pairs naturally with our house removals service for a single, coordinated move.
We cover packing and removals across Devon, from Newton Abbot and the surrounding villages to Exeter, Torquay, and beyond — see our Devon removals coverage for the full picture.
Get in Touch
Whether you want a hand with the whole move or just the packing, call us on 07792 215 204 or get in touch online for a free, no-obligation quote. We’ll talk through what you need and give you a straightforward answer, not a sales pitch.
Professional removal services across Devon. Helping families and businesses move with care since 2019.