Professional Packing and Unpacking Services

Why choose Star Van Lines for packing and unpacking

Anyone can tape a box. What separates a professional pack from a weekend of grocery-store cartons is training, materials, and accountability. A Star Van Lines packing job rests on four things you can verify:

• A licensed carrier packs it. We operate under USDOT #4176875 and MC #1607491, both searchable on the public FMCSA SAFER registry at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov. Cartons packed by our crew, not by you, are the mover's responsibility in transit.
• Our own crews. The people who wrap your stemware work for Star Van Lines, not a staffing app hired for the day. Packing quality is entirely about who does it, so we keep the crew trained and the accountability with one company.
• Materials matched to the load. We pack in new, correctly sized cartons with the right cushioning, from dish packs to custom crates, because a flimsy box under a valuable hutch fails at the worst moment.
• A written inventory. Every carton we pack is labeled by room and listed on the inventory, so unpacking is fast and any damage claim has a record behind it.

We have moved households in all 50 states since 2016 and hold a 240+ review history across public platforms. We keep that record by packing to a standard, not to the clock.

How is packing priced?

Packing is priced on two inputs: materials and labor. Materials are the cartons, paper, bubble, and crates your home needs, counted by room. Labor is the number of packers and the hours the work takes, which rises with the volume of fragile items far more than with square footage, because a kitchen of glassware takes longer to pack than a bedroom of folded clothes. A partial pack of two or three rooms costs a fraction of a full-home pack. Because both inputs are specific to your home, we quote packing from the survey, not from a rate card, and put the number in writing before we start. Call (855) 822-2722 and we will size it with you.

What a packing estimate is built from

The single biggest driver is how many boxes your home fills and how many of them are fragile. As a general planning norm, a single kitchen runs about 8 to 12 boxes with a mix of dish packs and mediums, a bedroom about 5 to 10, and a bathroom about 2 to 4. A 1-bedroom apartment often totals 15 to 30 cartons, while a 3-bedroom home can run 60 to 100. Those are rough ranges to plan around, not a quote; the fragile count, the number of specialty pieces needing crates, and whether you want a full or partial pack move the final figure. Your written estimate reflects your actual rooms.

What is the difference between full-service, partial, and fragile-only packing?

There are three ways to buy packing, and the right one depends on how much you want to handle yourself. Full-service packing means the crew packs the entire home, every room and every carton, and is the option people choose before a long-distance move or when time is short. Partial packing covers only the rooms or items you name, most often the kitchen, the china cabinet, the garage, or the artwork, while you handle the clothes and books. Fragile-only packing is the narrowest: the crew packs just the breakables, dishes, glassware, mirrors, and electronics, which are where most damage happens, and leaves the rest to you. You can also pack everything yourself and add only unpacking at the far end. We help you pick the level at the survey, and it is priced to match.

How are fragile and high-value items packed?

Fragile items are packed by category, because a plate, a wine glass, and a framed print each fail in a different way. Plates and platters are wrapped individually in clean paper and stood on edge, like records in a crate, inside a double-walled dish pack, because a plate on its edge resists pressure far better than one lying flat. Glasses and stemware are paper-wrapped, stuffed so the bowl cannot flex, and set into cell dividers so they never touch. Mirrors, framed art, and glass tops travel on edge in telescoping mirror cartons with corner protectors and a paper face, never stacked flat where weight can crack them. Electronics go into foam pouches and, where possible, their original boxes, then double-boxed. Lamps come apart: the shade is boxed on its own, the harp and bulb are removed, and the base is wrapped and boxed upright. Everything fragile is filled so tightly that nothing inside can shift.

What does a professional pack, and what should you carry yourself?

A professional crew packs almost everything in the home: kitchens, glassware, books, decor, closets, garages, art, electronics, and furniture. What you should keep with you, and never put in a moving carton, is the short list of things that are irreplaceable or that you will need right away. Carry your own passports, birth certificates, and other vital documents; cash, jewelry, and small valuables; prescription medication; laptops, phones, and their chargers; keys; and a few days of clothes and toiletries in a suitcase. Movers also cannot load hazardous materials, so aerosols, propane tanks, paint, gasoline, cleaning chemicals, ammunition, and other flammables and corrosives are packed and transported by you, not on the truck. Everything else is ours to box.

What is unpacking and debris removal?

Unpacking is the reverse of the pack, and it is a separate service you can add or skip. When you book it, the crew opens the cartons at your new home, unwraps each item, and sets it on a flat surface, a counter, a shelf, a bed, so you are placing clean dishes into cabinets rather than digging through paper. Full unpacking empties every carton; partial unpacking, which many people choose, handles the kitchen and the fragile rooms and leaves the clothes and books for you. Debris removal is the part people forget: a full-home pack can leave 60 to 100 flattened boxes and a mountain of used paper, and a new home does not need that pile in the garage. On request we gather the empty cartons, paper, and wrapping and haul them away the same day, so unpacking ends with an empty room, not a cleanup.

How do you crate art, mirrors, and specialty items?

Some items are too large, too fragile, or too valuable for even a heavy carton, so they are crated instead. We measure the piece and build a custom wood crate to its exact size for marble and glass tabletops, stone and metal sculpture, chandeliers, large framed art, and antiques with delicate finishes. Inside the crate the item is floated on foam and padding so it does not touch the walls, the same idea as fill inside a box, scaled up to plywood. Mirrors and flat glass are corner-protected and faced with paper or glassine before crating. Heavy specialty pieces such as pianos and safes are their own discipline with weight-rated equipment; if your move centers on an instrument, our piano moving service handles the crating and stair work. Every crated item is written onto the inventory and checked off again at delivery.

How should you prepare for packing day?

A little prep makes the pack faster and the estimate more accurate. Declutter first, because you pay to pack and move what you keep, so anything headed for donation should leave before the crew counts boxes. Clear a path to each room and empty the tops of dressers and counters so packers can work. Separate the items you will carry yourself, documents, medication, valuables, and a suitcase of essentials, into one closet and mark it do-not-pack, so nothing personal ends up taped into a carton. Set aside the hazardous materials that cannot ride on the truck. Make sure pets and small children have somewhere to be, since a pack day means open boxes and paper across the floor. We hand you a short prep checklist after the survey so nothing is missed.

How does packing protect a long-distance or local move?

Packing is what stands between your belongings and the road. On a long-distance move, goods are handled more times and travel more miles, so a professionally packed carton, filled tight and stacked square, is what survives a cross-country haul that a grocery-store box would not; our long-distance moving service prices the transport, and packing rides on top of it. On a local move billed by the hour, boxes that are packed, labeled, and stacked before the crew arrives cut the hours on the clock, which is why our local moving service and our packing service are often booked together. Either way, when the same licensed company under USDOT #4176875 and MC #1607491 packs, loads, and delivers, a broken item cannot be blamed on someone else's box. That single chain of custody is the whole point of hiring a mover to pack.