If you are preparing to move an office or home on your own, it helps to have a checklist handy. There are many scenarios in which you might need some special supplies, but for the most part you can get away with having the following items handy. Prepare and collect all of them before you start packing and moving to help things go as smoothly as possible.

You should have:

15-20 small cardboard boxes

15-20 medium cardboard boxes

15-20 large cardboard boxes

You can collect these for free from local shops and merchants, or you can buy them from a moving company. You can also get an entire kit of boxes from a number of home supply stores, such as the Home Depot or Lowes.

You will also want cardboard separators. You can buy these or prepare your own using extra cardboard boxes picked up from local shops. Make sure to use thicker cardboard if you are going to make your own separators, and don’t cut them down until you are ready to use them.

Bubble wrap

Packing Peanuts

Fresh newspaper

A large roll of plastic wrap (used to protect items with distinct shapes and furniture)

A mattress bag is recommended for each mattress your transfer

Packing tape to seal the boxes

A box cutter or razor blade

Permanent markers

You should already have some of these items around the house (markers, box cutter, news paper, and a few boxes). Make sure that each person helping with the move has their own supplies, including tape. It will help everything go a lot faster.

You also want to have a hand truck to facilitate your move. Having a hand truck can help when moving an office, apartment, or home. You can stack several boxes and move heavy items much easier with one of these.

Make sure to label your boxes intelligently. We recommend using a system when moving an office or apartment that involves labeling each box by room and items. For instance, labeling one box “Kitchen: glasses” will make it easier for you to find and unpack these items in the right order.

Don’t forget to label boxes with fragile items. Make sure this is marked clearly on the top of the box. Use newspaper and packing peanuts to fill in empty space in boxes that have fragile items and draw an arrow on the sides indicating which way is up.

When you are moving an office or home it is easy for things to get disorganized pretty quickly. By figuring out how many boxes you need for each room and placing them accordingly, moving an office can become a simple and straightforward task.

Don’t forget to reinforce the bottom of your boxes with extra packing tape, especially when they become heavy. Books are the worst, because they can be deceptively heavy.