Packing list
Packing and crating
Blanket-wrapped furniture, crated fragile pieces and labeled boxes, packed by trained movers.
Where a packed house goes wrong
Most packing damage is decided before the truck arrives. Boxes get taped with masking tape that cannot carry a full carton, plates ride under books, and a box marked only Kitchen turns out to hold the toaster and the good crystal. By the time the crew is loading, the mistakes are already sealed in.
Farnsworth's own packing guidance says to plan at least six weeks if you pack yourself, to use proper cartons and wide, strong packing tape, and to mark fragile boxes on the outside with arrows showing which way is up. Antiques and delicate pieces are a different class of problem, and the same page is plain about it: movers can supply specially made crates to secure and ship fragile items and antiques.
One more thing that catches people late. Most refrigerators, washers, dryers and other electrical or mechanical appliances need servicing before they are shipped, and gas appliances have to be serviced and disconnected before the move. That is the owner's responsibility, though a mover can arrange the service on request for an additional charge.
Truck interior with a wood floor, stacks of blue moving pads, straps and hand trucks
How the crew packs it
Packing here is a crew job, not a pile of supplies left on your porch. Trained Farnsworth movers wrap furniture in moving blankets, crate the fragile pieces, and pack the rest in cartons with proper materials. The same people load the truck, so whoever labeled a box also knows where it rides.
A customer who moved out of a San Francisco home put it this way in her Google review: "They packed everything with great care, methodically labeled each box, and transported all items to my storage unit." Another had a crew spend two days packing well over 200 boxes before her furniture shipped across the country to Boston.
Beds and big wardrobes come apart on the way out and go back together at the other end. If you would rather pack some rooms yourself, the packing materials list tells you what to buy, and the crew can handle the rest.
What happens at the other end
The job is not done when the truck is empty. The crew unloads, unpacks, places furniture where you want it and reassembles what was taken apart, so the first night in the new place does not start with a hunt for the bed frame bolts.
Anything worth more than $100 per pound counts in the trade as an article of extraordinary value: jewelry, art, antiques, china, silverware and the like. Those items go on Mayflower's High-Value Inventory form, which your salesperson hands you, and Mayflower has to be told in writing that they are in the shipment. Do that early, because it changes how a claim is settled.
Questions about crating a specific piece, or about what to pack before the crew arrives, go to the office at (415) 459-6683. The crew has been wrapping Marin furniture out of the San Rafael warehouse since 1971.
They packed everything with great care, methodically labeled each box, and transported all items to my storage unit.
Attached to this consignment
Packing
Supplies
Ask the office for our packing materials list for the rooms you pack yourself.
Next stop
Boxes that cannot go to the new place on day one wait in mover-managed storage, and a house across town is a local Marin move.
Questions
Send the details through the contact page and the office will take it from there.