Most packing guides walk through a house door to door in whatever order the floor plan suggests, which falls apart the moment they hit a Valley garage stacked to the rafters or a hall closet in a Koreatown high-rise that hasn’t been opened since escrow closed. Los Angeles homes rarely have basements, but a two-car garage in Sherman Oaks, a Craftsman attic nook in Pasadena or Eagle Rock, and a walk-in closet in a Downtown LA rental all collect the same way over the years. Here’s an order built around where the clutter actually lives instead of the order a floor plan happens to suggest.
A Packing Timeline That Works Across the Whole House
| Timing | Focus |
|---|---|
| 3 weeks out | Garage, storage closets, and anything in an attic nook, since these hold the most weight and the least-used items |
| 2 weeks out | Kitchen and dining room, the slowest rooms in the house once fragile items get involved |
| 1 week out | Bedrooms, closets, and living room furniture that needs padding or disassembly |
| Final 48 hours | Bathrooms, electronics, and one bag per person for anything still in daily use |
Garage and Storage Closets Go First
A Valley garage or a stuffed hall closet holds the heaviest boxes and the items a household touches least, which is exactly why leaving them for last backfires. Clearing these spaces three weeks out keeps the final week from turning into a scramble.
- Decide what’s actually moving with you before you decide how to pack it; don’t box something out of habit
- Tape small hardware, mounting screws, and cable brackets into a bag stuck directly onto the matching piece of furniture
- Anything flammable or pressurized, half-used paint cans, old propane bottles, aerosol cans, stays off the truck entirely; use it up, hand it off, or take it to a hazardous-waste drop-off first
- Label boxes for where they’re headed in the new place, not where they’re coming from now; that’s the label that actually helps on delivery day
Kitchen and Dining Room Together
Between the two rooms, fragile items and heavy items end up sharing shelf space more than anywhere else in the house.
| Item | Packing approach |
|---|---|
| Plates | Stand them on edge in a dish-pack box with divider slots rather than stacking flat, where weight cracks the bottom plate |
| Bowls and stackable dishes | Group a few together with padding between pieces, then wrap the whole cluster as one unit |
| Countertop appliances | Use the manufacturer’s box if it’s still around; if not, coil the cord, tape it down, and wrap the appliance upright |
| Glass tabletops | Remove from the base, pad both sides, and stand on edge rather than laying flat under any weight |
How to tell a box is too heavy
Pick it up the way a mover would, from the bottom in one motion, not braced against your knee. If it won’t budge cleanly, split it into two boxes. Books, canned pantry goods, and cookware are the usual culprits: they fill a small box’s weight limit long before they fill its volume, so keep those categories in smaller boxes and let lighter items go in the bigger ones.
Bedrooms and Closets
Most dresser drawers can travel as-is. If the piece is sturdy and the drawers aren’t packed to the brim, leave clothing folded inside and tape the drawers shut for the ride. Older or more delicate dressers are the exception: pull the drawers out separately so the empty frame isn’t flexing under weight while the crew carries it.
- Start with the closet, not the dresser. Closets sit untouched most weeks, so they can come down early without disrupting daily life.
- Move hangers straight into a wardrobe box. Nothing gets folded, and it’s usually the fastest part of the entire pack.
- Set aside one duffel per person for whatever gets worn or used in the final two days before the crew arrives.
- Leave seasonal layers for last if your move falls in the cooler months; you may still need that jacket the morning of.
Living Room Furniture
- Bookshelves travel empty; carrying one loaded strains both the shelving and whoever’s lifting it, and shifting weight is how a corner gets dinged
- Lampshades separate from their base and ride boxed on their own
- Rugs get rolled, never folded, and taped at both ends so they can’t come loose in the truck
- A curio cabinet, a rolltop desk, or anything with glass doors is a crew job, not a wrap-it-yourself job; clear the path to the door ahead of time
Bathrooms, Last Among the Small Rooms
Bathrooms hold more liquid and glass per square foot than any other room, which makes them slower to pack than their size suggests.
- Seal liquid bottles with tape around the cap and bag them individually in case one leaks
- Mirrors and glass shelves travel on edge, padded, and marked on both sides
- Extra towels double as padding around anything fragile instead of filling boxes of their own
- One bag of daily toiletries stays out of the truck entirely until moving day is over
Electronics, Whatever Room They Came From
Tag every cable with a small strip of tape before you unplug it, and put a matching tag on the port it came out of. It’s the difference between hooking everything back up in ten minutes and spending an entire evening guessing. — Jamal Whitfield, senior mover
A television or monitor rides upright in its own box, never stacked flat under anything else, and anything electronic stays out of an open truck bed where it could catch rain or road spray.
Packing for a Santa Monica, Downtown LA, or Koreatown High-Rise
A high-rise changes the packing math more than most people expect. Freight elevators run on a reserved block of time, usually 60 to 90 minutes, so everything needs to be staged and ready to move in a continuous run rather than trickling out while boxes are still being taped shut. A smaller number of clearly labeled boxes clears a single elevator car faster than a large pile of loosely packed ones. Priya Nair handles the building’s certificate of insurance and elevator reservation ahead of the date, so the crew already knows which entrance, which elevator, and which window belongs to your move before the truck ever pulls up.
Questions we hear most
Where should we start if the whole house feels overwhelming?
The garage or the biggest storage closet. It’s the space nobody opens day to day, so clearing it first frees up real room in the rest of the house.
Should we buy boxes, or will you bring them?
Reuse sturdy ones if you have them; the brand doesn’t matter. For everything else, we can drop off a stack several days before load day.
Can Aragon Moving Systems pack just part of the house?
Often it’s the kitchen, since wrapping forty mugs alone isn’t anyone’s idea of a good afternoon, or the garage, since somebody has to decide what finally gets donated. Both are covered under the same flat number — no second invoice shows up for either room.