Partial packing and box packing only

Most households fall somewhere between packing everything and packing nothing. Books and clothes are easy to do on a weeknight. The kitchen, the china cabinet, the framed art and the electronics are the parts that take skill and a lot of paper. Partial packing hands those parts to the crew and leaves the simple parts to you, so the cost of professional hands goes only where it is needed.

Three ways to split the work

Partial packing: the crew packs the rooms or categories you select, such as the kitchen, dishes and pictures, and you pack the rest. Box packing only: the crew packs your belongings without moving them afterward, which suits a home being staged for sale or a household going into storage. Packing into your own boxes: if you have collected sturdy cartons, the crew will pack into them.

Each choice is written on the estimate by name. Nothing is assumed, so you can see exactly where the crew starts and stops.

• Partial pack by room or category
• Box packing only, with or without a move
• Packing into customer-supplied boxes

What people hand over first

The items people most often give to the crew are the ones that break or cost the most to replace: glassware and dishes, mirrors and pictures, lamps, televisions and computer equipment, and delicate collections. A crew that packs on working days wraps these faster and with fewer losses than a family doing it once.

Heavy, low-risk items, such as books and winter clothing, are the easy wins for you. The packing calculator estimates how many cartons of each size those rooms will need.

Box packing only for staging and storage

A home listed for sale shows better with closets half empty and shelves cleared. Box packing only lets the crew clear those spaces, label the cartons and carry them to the Sparks warehouse or a spare room. The move that follows can be booked later.

O'Brien's also helps with de-cluttering and rearranging furniture for home staging, which pairs naturally with a partial pack. See storage while you sell your home.

Using your own boxes

Customer-supplied boxes are fine if they are strong, clean and the right size for their contents. A carton that sags or has a split corner is the one that fails under a stack. The crew will tell you at packing time if a box is not fit to ride, and replacements are sold at the Sparks office.

Your 10 free heavy-duty boxes from the in-home estimate are yours to keep and can be mixed in with the rest.

Packing and the written estimate

The estimator notes which rooms are partial-packed, then itemizes the work and gives a written estimate. Because the line items are separate, you can compare a partial pack with a full pack before choosing. For the whole-home option, see full packing.