One tote. Here's what fits in it.
Four cubic feet, a lid that stays attached, and a footprint that stacks square on a dolly. About a large moving box, and 60% more room than the usual rental bin. Keep each under about fifty pounds.
One of them holds
- Folded shirts and jeans
- ~35
- Dresser drawers, tipped straight in
- 2
- Pairs of shoes
- ~16
- Dinner plates, wrapped and on edge
- ~30
- A whole made bed: duvet, sheets, pillows
- 1
- Pots, pans and bakeware
- ~10
- Books or files (hits 50 lb first)
- ~35
Why one size
Every tote stacks on every other tote, so a load is square on the dolly and square in the truck. Nothing is a guess: it is a tote, or it is not. Fifty pounds is the limit, and a tote of books gets there before it is full, so leave room on top for the light things.
Things that will not fit — a floor lamp, a mirror, a guitar — travel loose, the way they do anyway. The dolly takes a stack of five.
Or work back from the house
Order by house size and we send the usual count. Change it before you book.
- 15StudioOne closet, one kitchen, not much else
- 301 bedThe most common order we take
- 442 bedEvery tote at the 40+ price
- 663 bedAdd ten more if there's a garage or a basement
- 944 bed+Every tote at its lowest price
Counts are in our 4 cu ft totes. A two-bedroom comes to about forty-four: eleven for the kitchen, nine per bedroom, seven for the living room, four for the dining room, two per bathroom, and the rest for closets and the garage. If your own count comes out well under that, you've forgotten a closet.
Three things that trip people up
Fill to the lid with clothes
Clothes are light and bulky, so pack each tote right up to the lid and don't worry about weight. One tote takes two dresser drawers, tipped straight in.
Pack by room, not by size
Keep one room per tote even when there is space left over. Unpacking goes room by room, and a tote holding half the kitchen and half the office gets set down twice.
Heavy things, half full
Shoes and books are the sleepers: heavy, and there are always more than anyone admits. Fill a tote halfway with them and top it up with towels or linens so it stays under 50 lb.
Rules of thumb
totes for an average kitchen, the room that always surprises people
per bedroom, closet and dresser included
is the comfortable ceiling. Shoes and dishes hit it long before a tote looks full
high is a safe stack on a dolly, five if the floor is flat
Per-tote counts assume about 50 lb packed. Each tote is 4 cubic feet, about a large moving box and 60% more room than the usual 2.5 cu ft rental bin. Room and home-size counts come from room-by-room packing, so they include the closets, the garage and the things people forget: studio 15, one bed 30, two bed 44, three bed 66, four bed 94.
Leave these out
- Open liquids
- Anything wet
- Paint, fuel, propane
- Food that spoils
- Tape on the plastic (use the labels and zip ties we include)
- More than 50 lb
- Stacks over five high