Avoid damaged belongings with our professional packing services. We use premium packing materials and expert methods to ensure your items arrive safely and securely.
Full-service packing means we pack everything in your home — every dish, every book, every item in every closet, drawer, and cabinet. The crew arrives the day before your move and works room by room until the entire household is boxed, wrapped, sealed, and labeled. A typical two-bedroom apartment takes four to six hours to fully pack with a two-person packing crew. A three-bedroom home with a basement and garage takes six to ten hours, depending on density. Full-service packing provides the strongest liability protection because every item is packed by our trained crew using professional materials.
Partial packing means you handle the easy items — clothing, linens, books, non-fragile personal items — and we handle the difficult ones: kitchen contents, artwork, mirrors, electronics, china cabinets, wine collections. This splits the workload and the cost. Partial packing typically costs 40% to 60% less than full-service packing because the labor hours are reduced. Fragile-only packing is for clients who are comfortable packing most of their home but want professional handling for high-value or easily broken items such as china sets, crystal, artwork, mirrors, framed photographs, antiques, and musical instruments. Our crew packs only the designated fragile items and leaves the rest to you. This service usually takes two to four hours and is particularly popular with clients who have inherited china or crystal collections. If you also need help moving the packed items, see our full moving services page for all available options.
The boxes you find behind a grocery store are not designed for moving. They have been crushed once already during shipping, their structural integrity is compromised, and they collapse under stacking weight. Moving-grade boxes are corrugated, double-walled, and rated for the loads they carry. Standard moving boxes come in small (ideal for books and heavy items), medium (for kitchen items and general household goods), and large (for lightweight bulky items like linens and lampshades). The rule is simple: heavy items in small boxes, light items in large boxes. Dish pack boxes have double-wall construction for layered packing of plates, bowls, and glassware — each piece wrapped individually and placed vertically with crumpled paper between layers. Wardrobe boxes include a built-in metal hanging bar so clothing goes directly from the closet rod into the box on hangers, with no folding or wrinkling. Mirror and picture boxes are telescoping, adjustable-depth boxes for flat items, and custom crating is built on-site for items that do not fit standard boxes: marble table tops, large sculptures, oversized artwork, and irregular antiques.
Professional packing is not faster because we use shortcuts. It is faster because we have done it thousands of times and we use consistent techniques that work. Every glass and stemware item is wrapped individually in clean packing paper — not newspaper, which smudges and transfers ink. The wrapped item is placed in a cell divider inside a dish pack box. Plates are packed vertically, like records in a crate. This distributes force across the strongest axis of the plate. Flat-stacking plates is the weakest orientation for transport because a single pressure point on the top plate transfers force to every plate below it. Electronics are wrapped in anti-static packing materials when available. If you still have the original box for a TV or monitor, that is the best option. If not, we build a custom box or wrap the item in multiple layers of bubble wrap with corner protectors. For apartment moves or local relocations throughout Greater Boston, packing can be bundled with your move date for a seamless single-crew experience.
Your belongings are protected every step of the way. As a $2 million licensed and insured moving company, we ensure professional service with added peace of mind during your move.
Our team knows Boston streets and building rules, ensuring efficient planning, safe transport, and fewer delays. We make local moves smoother with trusted experience.
We offer clear, itemized pricing with zero hidden fees – so you always know exactly what you’re paying for. Our charges are fully transparent and usually limited to travel, hourly labor, and supplies.
We carefully take apart and reassemble furniture such as beds, desks, wardrobes, and shelving to ensure safe moving, proper fit through tight spaces, and secure setup – saving you time and preventing damage.
We offer weekend, evening, and last-minute moving slots to fit your schedule. Our team works around your availability to ensure convenience without sacrificing quality.
Our movers are courteous, respectful, and trained to handle all types of items. From delicate glassware to heavy furniture, we treat your move with care and professionalism.
The kitchen is the room that takes the longest to pack in every home. It contains the highest density of breakable items — glasses, plates, bowls, mugs, serving dishes — the most awkward items, and the most overlooked items. A Continental Moving crew packing a typical Boston apartment kitchen uses 8 to 15 boxes for the kitchen alone. A suburban home with a full set of china, a baking collection, and a pantry can require 20 to 30 kitchen boxes. Packing time for a kitchen averages 90 minutes to 3 hours, depending on the volume and fragility of contents. We recommend emptying the refrigerator and freezer before packing day. Perishable food cannot be transported on the moving truck, and thawing items create moisture problems for other boxes during loading. For office moves that include break room kitchens, the same approach applies — we pack all kitchen contents systematically and label every box for the destination room.
This is a distinction many people do not realize until after something breaks. Items packed by our crew are covered under full liability protection. If a dish pack prepared by our team arrives with broken contents, we file a claim and cover the replacement or repair cost. Items packed by the customer are covered only at released value: $0.60 per pound per item. A box of china that you packed yourself, weighing 30 pounds, would be covered at a maximum of $18 regardless of the actual value — this is a federal regulation for household goods shipments that applies to all moving companies. If you have high-value fragile items and want full coverage on them, professional packing is the way to ensure that coverage applies. Every box packed by our crew also receives a label indicating the room of origin, room of destination, a general description of contents, and a sequential box number. Box #47 is not just “Kitchen” — it is “Kitchen, upper cabinets, glasses and coffee mugs, fragile.” This tells the unloading crew exactly where to place each box and gives you a roadmap for unpacking. If you are planning a small move or a long distance relocation, packing services can be added to either type of move.
Below are the most common questions we receive about professional packing. For questions about the move itself, see our local movers page.
One to two weeks is sufficient for most homes. During peak season in August and September, book packing along with your move date to ensure crew availability. We can often accommodate shorter notice for smaller homes or partial packing jobs.
Clothing in dresser drawers can usually stay in place. We wrap the dresser in moving blankets and transport it with drawers intact. If the dresser is too heavy to carry safely with full drawers, we pack the drawer contents into boxes and remove the drawers for transport.
Yes. This is essentially partial packing. Pack what you are comfortable with, and our crew handles the rest on packing day. Just let us know what areas you have completed so we can focus our time on the remaining rooms.
Garages and attics are included in full-service packing. Tools, holiday decorations, sporting equipment, and stored items are boxed and labeled like every other room. Hazardous materials including paint, gasoline, propane, and chemicals cannot be packed or transported.
Packing typically adds 30% to 50% to the total cost of a local move, depending on the volume. A two-bedroom apartment that costs six hours of moving labor might add three to four hours of packing labor the day before. Materials including boxes, tape, and paper are billed separately based on actual usage.
Call Continental Moving at 508-904-2029 to add packing to your move or to book standalone packing services. We will assess your home, recommend the right level of service, and provide a cost estimate based on your specific inventory. Whether you need every room packed or just the kitchen china, our crew brings the materials, the technique, and the patience to get it done right. For full household relocations, our local movers team can handle packing and moving in one coordinated job. For larger corporate or office moves, our commercial movers team provides the same professional packing for business environments.