Everything You Need Packed Before Moving Day

There is no universal answer, but a rough starting point is 10 to 15 small boxes, 10 medium boxes, and 5 large boxes for a one-bedroom apartment. A three-bedroom house in Riverview or St. Petersburg can easily need 60 to 80 boxes total once you account for closets, the garage, and the kitchen.

The honest advice is to overestimate. Unused boxes can be broken down flat and recycled. Running out of boxes two days before your move is a real problem that costs you time and stress you did not budget for.

It is a bag or box you keep with you, not on the truck, that holds everything you will need in the first 24 hours at the new place. Think phone chargers, a change of clothes, medications, toilet paper, a few dishes, and any documents you cannot afford to lose in a box mix-up.

Florida summers mean you should also add a few bottles of water and a small fan if your new place does not have the AC running yet. Movers and owners alike feel the heat on a Tampa Bay moving day.

Packing paper and bubble wrap are purpose-built to protect fragile items, and they do that job well. That said, clean towels, t-shirts, and linens work as padding for moderately fragile items like picture frames or everyday dishes. What does not work well is newspaper, which leaves ink on everything it touches.

Where bubble wrap earns its cost is around genuinely breakable items: stemware, ceramic pieces, anything with a thin edge. If something breaks in transit and it was wrapped in a bath towel, that is a different conversation than if it was properly cushioned.

This is a fair and important question. Florida's default carrier liability is 60 cents per pound, which means a broken 10-pound lamp is worth six dollars under that standard. That number does not change based on who supplied the bubble wrap. What changes your protection is purchasing full-value coverage before moving day, not after.

We talk through valuation options with every customer before the move, not in the driveway when the truck is already loaded. Whether you pack yourself or use our full packing service, understanding what your belongings are covered for is a conversation worth having early.

You can, and many people do. Liquor store boxes are actually sturdy and sized well for books and kitchen items. The real risk with used boxes is that you cannot always tell how many times they have been loaded, whether they got wet, or whether the bottom seams are still reliable under weight.

If you are using secondhand boxes, tape every seam, including the bottom, with fresh packing tape before you load anything into them. A box that fails on a Tampa driveway in July heat is a problem that new tape mostly prevents.

Want a straight answer for your own move? Call or text (813) 505-2560, request a free estimate, or send us a note. A Brothers estimator replies, not a bot.