Of all the rooms in a home, the kitchen is the one our crews approach with the most respect. It is the room with the most fragile items, the most awkward shapes, the most weight per square foot, and the most emotional attachment per object. A grandmother's wedding china, the heavy Dutch oven that has cooked thirty years of family dinners, the espresso machine that took six months of saving — these are not just things. They are the artifacts of a life lived around a table. When something breaks in transit, it is not just an expense. It is a small grief.
If you are packing your own kitchen, this guide will save you broken plates, sore shoulders, and the special frustration of unpacking and finding a coffee mug fragments stuck inside a salad bowl. Read it before you buy a single box. Better yet, read it twice. The kitchen is not the room to learn on the job.
Step One: Gather the Right Materials
You cannot pack a kitchen with leftover Amazon boxes and old newspapers. You need the right tools, and the cost is small compared to what they protect. For a typical South Florida kitchen with standard dinnerware, glassware, pots, and small appliances, plan on the following supplies.
- Dish boxes (also called dish packs): thick double-walled boxes specifically built to handle the weight of plates and bowls. Plan for 4 to 6 for a standard kitchen, 6 to 10 for a larger gourmet setup.
- Small boxes: for heavy items like cast iron, canned goods, and small appliances. A small box of canned tomatoes can weigh 35 pounds. A large one breaks your back or the truck floor.
- Medium boxes: for pots, pans, mixing bowls, and Tupperware.
- Packing paper (unprinted): a stack of at least 250 sheets. Never use newspaper directly on plates or glassware. The ink transfers and you spend the next week scrubbing.
- Bubble wrap: one large roll for stemware, picture frames, and high-value items.
- Sturdy packing tape: two to three rolls. The thin clear stuff from the dollar store will fail. Get the heavy-duty version, two inches wide.
- Permanent markers: for labeling. Two colors helps: black for contents, red for FRAGILE warnings.
- Cell dividers: optional but ideal for stemware. Empty wine boxes work just as well.
A complete kitchen packing kit from a moving supply store in Doral, Hialeah, or Pompano Beach runs around 60 to 90 dollars. Spending it is much cheaper than replacing broken plates. Most stores accept returns of unused boxes, so over-buying is low risk.
Step Two: Start with the Pantry and the Junk Drawer
The pantry is the easiest place to begin because it forces you to throw things away. Half of what is in your pantry has been there for two years. Now is the moment to face it.
Sort the pantry into three piles: keep, donate, discard. Anything past its expiration date goes in the trash. Anything unopened and good for another six months goes in a box if you are keeping it, or in a bag for a local food bank if you cannot use it. Feeding South Florida, the regional food bank, accepts unopened non-perishables. So do most South Florida churches and community centers. Pet food donations also help; the Humane Society of Greater Miami runs a food bank specifically for families struggling to feed their pets.
For what you are keeping, group like with like. All canned goods in one box. All boxed pasta and grains in another. All baking supplies (flour, sugar, baking soda) in a third. Spices in a fourth, padded with paper because they are light but fragile. Label each box on the side with both the contents and the destination room (kitchen, pantry, etc.). Keep boxes under 40 pounds. The mover will appreciate it, and so will your floor.
The junk drawer is its own little nightmare. Empty the entire thing onto a towel, sort it, throw away half of it, and put the rest in a small box labeled kitchen miscellaneous. Resist the urge to pack the junk drawer 'as is' by sealing it with tape. Yes, this is a real thing people try. No, it does not survive the truck. The first sharp turn on the highway and the drawer becomes a maraca of broken pens and rubber bands.
Step Three: Plates, Bowls, and Stemware (The Fragile Layer)
This is where most kitchens get damaged in transit. Take your time here. Two hours of careful work saves a year of regret and several hundred dollars in replacement dinnerware.
Plates and bowls: stack vertically in the box, not flat. Plates pack like records in a record store, standing on their edges. The pressure of a stack distributes through the rim, not through the center, which is the weakest point of a plate. Wrap each plate individually in packing paper, then layer two or three plates wrapped together in a final sheet. Fill the bottom of the dish box with two inches of crumpled paper as a cushion. Pack plates in the bottom, lighter bowls in the middle, and the lightest items on top. Fill any voids with more crumpled paper so nothing shifts in transit.
Glassware and stemware: each glass gets wrapped in two sheets of packing paper plus a layer of bubble wrap for wine glasses. Stem-up in the box, never stem-down (the stem is the weakest point and breaks under any pressure). Use cell dividers if you have any leftover wine boxes, which are perfect for this. Liquor stores in Aventura, Coral Gables, and Hollywood will often give them away if you ask politely. A box of wine glasses without dividers needs aggressive padding between each glass.
Mugs: wrap each one individually, then stack handles-down in a double row. Avoid hooking handles together; they crack at the joint. The handle is structurally the weakest part of a ceramic mug.
Once a dish box is full, close it and write FRAGILE - THIS SIDE UP on every side in red marker. Movers will respect the label, but only if it is on every side, because boxes get rotated in transit. A label on just the top is invisible once the box is stacked.
Step Four: Pots, Pans, and Small Appliances
Pots and pans are heavier than they look and dirtier than you want to admit. Wipe them down before packing. Stack them by size, nesting smaller into larger, with a sheet of packing paper between each one to prevent scratching. Lids go on top with their handles facing up. A standard medium box holds about three full sets. For cast iron, use small boxes; a Dutch oven plus its lid can easily approach 30 pounds, and a medium box of cast iron breaks bottoms.
Small appliances (toaster, blender, coffee maker, food processor) get their own treatment. If you saved the original box, use it. If not, wrap the appliance in two layers of paper, secure any moving parts (the lid of a blender, the lever of a toaster) with tape, and place it in a box with crumpled paper around it. Pack cords separately in labeled bags inside the box so you do not spend twenty minutes untangling them at the new house.
Knives are dangerous to pack carelessly. Sheath each knife in a piece of folded cardboard taped shut, then wrap in paper, then place in a box marked SHARP. Never throw loose knives into a box with other utensils. We have seen too many cuts on moving days. If you have a knife block, leave the knives inserted, wrap the entire block in two layers of paper, and box it as a single unit.
Step Five: The Last 24 Hours and the Essentials Box
The kitchen is the last room you fully pack and the first room you fully unpack. Until 24 hours before the move, you still need to eat. Set aside one small box of kitchen essentials: a pan, two plates, two bowls, two mugs, two sets of silverware, a chef's knife, a cutting board, dish soap, a sponge, and the coffee maker. This box rides in your car, not the truck. You will thank yourself at 6 a.m. the morning after the move.
The night before the move, eat whatever is left in the refrigerator or give it to a neighbor. Empty the fridge entirely. Defrost the freezer at least 24 hours in advance. A freezer with water dripping out the bottom is the kind of moving-day surprise nobody enjoys. Wipe down all interior surfaces of the fridge and freezer; doing it now is much easier than doing it after a long drive in a hot truck.
The Unboxing Order at the New Home
When you arrive, unpack the kitchen first. Not because it is the most important room emotionally, but because it is the one that lets you eat, drink coffee, and feel human. Start with the essentials box. Then unpack the boxes labeled everyday dishes. Save the special occasion china for the second week. By the time the rest of the house is unpacked, your kitchen will already feel like home, and that single fact will keep your morale up through the rest of the unpacking marathon. A working kitchen is the heart of a settled home; everything else can wait a day or two.