Packing guides drawn up for cooler states leave out the two forces that rule a Hill Country move: from late spring on the heat is merciless, and a quick Guadalupe rise can knock the whole schedule off its rails. Our crews at Browning Storage have packed and loaded Kerr County homes by the thousands since 2008, and whether your unload runs two hours or five gets decided weeks ahead, back when the boxes get filled. What follows is the room-by-room method Wade and Rhonda lean on, dialed in for this climate.
One supply trip, scaled to your home
Discovering you are out of tape at midnight is a self-inflicted headache. Grab it all in a single run, with this as your starting point:
| Home size | Small boxes | Medium | Large | Dish packs | Wardrobe boxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio (a downtown Sidney Baker apartment) | 10 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| One-bedroom | 15 | 20 | 10 | 3 | 3 |
| Two-bedroom | 25 | 30 | 15 | 4 | 5 |
| Three-bedroom ranch house | 35 | 45 | 20 | 6 | 7 |
Throw in a couple of tape rolls past what seems right, hand a marker to everyone who is going to pack, and add a roll of stretch wrap. Leave the free boxes stacked behind the grocery store where they are. A Kerrville summer and a ranch garage are merciless on cardboard, and a box that has warped out in the heat gives up half its strength at the worst possible second, the bottom dropping out halfway up the steps and costing you far more than fresh boxes ever would.
Hill Country habits worth keeping in every room
- On wood, lay paper down before any plastic. Wrap pressed straight onto a dresser seals heat and sweat against the finish; cushion the piece with paper or a blanket, then wrap over that.
- Slip a silica packet in with electronics, photographs, and books.
- Low-melt things, candles, records, crayons, medication, ride in your air-conditioned back seat, never in a truck box that touches 120 by midday.
- Let leather breathe. Throw a cotton sheet over chairs and bags instead of sealing them up in plastic.
- Prop boxes up off a concrete floor if they will sit overnight in a garage or shop; bare slab pulls heat and damp right up into the cardboard.
Room by room, sequenced the way it works here
Week one: the garage, the shop, and the storage closets
Open with the rooms you will never miss. Give patio and porch furniture a wipe before it gets wrapped, since the dust and pollen baked onto it out here rubs off on whatever sits beside it in the truck. The grill rides only once the propane tank is pulled and left behind; fuel is something no mover may legally carry, and that covers gasoline in trimmers and generators, paint thinner, and any ranch chemical too. Burn through them or pass them to a neighbor. Box up the holiday bins, the luggage, the camping and river gear, and the sports equipment now.
Second week: the home office, files, and electronics
Paper rides in small boxes, full stop; load a large one with files and nobody can pick it up. Snap a photo of the cord nest behind the desk, then tag each cable with masking tape before a single plug comes loose. Passports, deeds, tax records, and backup drives all go in one tote that stays out of the truck for good. That tote rides in your car, because a slipped closing date is exactly when you cannot afford to spend a week digging those papers back out of a load.
Week three: the first kitchen pass, the bathrooms, the books
No room burns through hours like the kitchen, more than any other two combined, so work it in two passes. Pass one clears whatever you will not reach for before the move: the serving platters, the stand mixer, the holiday dishes, the pantry backstock. Stand plates on edge inside dish boxes with paper between them; lying flat, they soak up every jolt on the gravel. Wrap each glass on its own and drop it into a divided insert. Bathroom liquids go into a plastic tub rather than cardboard, because a single shampoo bottle weeping inside a hot truck reaches everything around it. Press towels and linens into service as free padding wherever it is needed.
The final week: bedrooms, the second kitchen pass, the living room
Clothes on hangers travel rod to wardrobe box, no folding. A dresser can keep its lighter contents when our crew is the one lifting it; flag it for us and we wrap the piece to suit. Have each person fill an open-first box: sheets, a towel, chargers, toiletries, a couple days of clothes. The second kitchen pass waits for the last two days: the daily plates, the coffee maker, the one pan you keep using. Put televisions back in their factory cartons if you saved them; if not, our crew rolls up with padded TV boxes. Stand mirrors and framed pieces on edge in picture boxes and rest them against a wall until they load. Glass that travels lying down carries the weight of everything piled over it.
Number your boxes and drop the guesswork
- Number each box and run one list on your phone: the number, the room, and three quick words on the contents.
- Mark the room and number on two faces of the box rather than the lid, which disappears the second something stacks on top.
- Flag the boxes you will reach for inside the first day so they load last and unload first.
- Before sealing any box worth more than a paycheck, photograph what went in. Should a claim ever come up, that picture does your arguing for you.
Around Kerr County the packing slip-up we run into most is not bad wrap, it is the clock. Folks underrate the kitchen by a whole day, without fail. Kick it off a week early and split it in two, and everything after it falls into place. — Wade Browning, owner
Packing when storage sits between two homes
A lot of Hill Country moves are not door to door. A house sells before the next closing lands, or a ranch property needs work before anyone moves in, and your belongings camp in our climate-controlled storage for a few weeks. Pack with that gap in mind. Keep boxes the same size and under fifty pounds so they stack square and steady on a pallet. Tag the few you might need to open mid-storage and load them last, so they end up nearest the unit door. Anything a triple-digit summer would punish, electronics, candles, leather, fine wood, belongs in the cooled unit, which is the whole point of keeping one rather than a roasting metal shed. The inventory and the wrapping are part of what we set up at booking.
What stays out of the boxes, period
- Propane, gasoline, aerosols, paint, and ranch or pool chemicals. None of it is allowed on the truck.
- Jewelry, cash, passports, and medication. These ride with you.
- Houseplants in summer. One afternoon shut inside a truck at Hill Country temperatures finishes them.
- Open food and anything that lives in the fridge.
Quick answers
When should packing begin?
A house wants four weeks, an apartment three. The garage, shop, and storage closets come first; the kitchen you use daily comes last.
Can your crew handle the packing?
We can. Full or partial packing bolts onto any written estimate, and the crew arrives with the dish boxes, paper, and wardrobe boxes already loaded.
What does it run to have movers pack only the kitchen?
Generally one to two extra hours of crew time at our usual $120 to $205 per hour, set by crew size. The precise number lands in your written estimate; the cost guide spells out how the labor adds up.
Do pianos call for special packing?
No boxes, but a lot of padding and the proper gear. Our own crew handles uprights at $300–$460 and baby grands at $500–$760, board-wrapped and strapped down, never rigged on the fly.
Would rather never pick up a tape gun?
Tack full or partial packing onto your move and our Kerrville crew takes every room on this list, with climate-controlled storage standing by if you need somewhere to land. Call (888) 711-4778 or get started online.