Bunch of smaller mish-mesh.

Heavy expensive speakers.

Messier to stack stuff.

Filled in and held solid like this.

ADVICE #13

BRINGING THINGS INTO THE TRUCK

As you and your helpers bring things into the truck, stage the items to the sides inside the truck, no closer than about seven feet back from the load-wall you're working on.  As you build more load-walls the wall fronts keep progressing back towards the back door, and if the staged items aren't  placed far enough away from where you're working, they get in the way and you might have to move them again just to make room to work. 

These staged items are better to be stacked "like on like", meaning the same size boxes on the same size boxes, etc.  This is so that the loader does not need to move one item to get to another item beneath it. One thing should not be leaning on another thing, for the same reason.  

ADVICE #14       LOAD WALLS

After the attic, you should almost always go with "base" furniture next.  "Base" meaning heavy weight bearing furniture that you can stack heavy boxes on, like dressers and night stands, that are about the depth of a medium or large box.  When you put your base piece (like a dresser) in the front corner of the truck, the furniture corner can contact the metal corner of the truck, which could potentially hurt the furniture corner.  This last picture shows a folded up blanket tucked in the corner to protect the corner. 

After the mom's attic, you would then build a series of "walls" like the cut slices of a loaf of bread.   Each wall reaches across the truck and up to the ceiling (like a wall), trying to keep the front edge of the wall as flat and even with the rest of the wall as possible.  Most walls will have a depth similar to the depth of a dresser or desk, or a medium sized moving box, but some walls may be the depth of a sofa or refrigerator.   

These pictures are what most of your load-walls should look like.

Most walls should, where possible, be composed of four height layers; 1) "base", weight bearing furniture (like  a dresser and a night stand) across the bottom (all pad-wrapped in blankets); 2) a layer of "heavier boxes" across the top of the base; 3) "lighter boxes" on top of the heavier box row; and 4) "top loader", on the very top , meaning not-very-stackable things like open top boxes, baskets, guitars, big kids toys, a vacuum cleaner, and dining chairs.  

Note that this advice is saying to load in these 4 layer types when possible, not stacking boxes from the floor to the ceiling in a stack seven boxes tall.  That's because tall stacks of boxes tend to crush the bottom boxes, where if there's a stack only two or three boxes tall they are far more crush resistant.  You'll also likely need regular boxes to fill in properly later in the load, so you don't want to just get rid of them all to early. 

Pick pieces that will fill in all the spaces and make the wall tight laterally, so that there's no slop (or empty gap) side to side.  Even a few inches of empty space of a gap can allow the wall to bang around and crush down more easily.  Tight means snug, so things can't move, with no empty space.  See the previous and following pictures.  

You need a step stool to be able to reach properly.   Don't worry about weight distribution because the weight of household items just isn't heavy enough to make a difference, other than if you're loading a U-Haul trailer.  If you're loading a trailer you need to put the center of the majority of weight a little in front of the Axel, and not extremely far off balance from side to side (they can tip).

 Your load-walls should be looking something like these pictures.

 When your items are well pad-wrapped they are far easier and safer to load in a sufficient way, and the few extra minutes it takes to do the padding is well worth the benefit of avoiding all the damage and soiled fabric that there is a big risk of happening otherwise.  

Sometimes, two things can be put in front of each other to add up to the desired depth of the wall, or an occasional thing can have it's front placed even with the front of the wall without the back of it being the full depth of the wall (but only with a few things here and there).  Save some of your extra narrow boxes to use as "tools" to fill in small gaps and make your load tight.  Don't just load and get rid of all the extra narrow boxes because a good loader saves some of them to use to tighten up gaps later.

cardboard boxes are better to go on the top of base items, rather than putting tubs or anything else on base items, because cardboard is not as hard as most other things and is a better protection for the tops of the base pieces of furniture.  Most of your load-walls should be looking like these last several examples.

The washer and dryer should be pad-wrapped, and have lighter items put on top of them all the way up to the ceiling, to reduce the weight on the washer & dryer.  Note, the washer & dryer in this picture were not pad-wrapped (Oops).  

Directly on the top of the washer and dryer should preferably be a large cardboard box that covers the entire top of each unit, from edge to edge, or over both units all the way to the outside edges, so that the edges of the machines take the weight, not the middle of the units which can bend down.  Also note in this last picture that there's no blanket protection around and between the washer & dryer, and there should be, unless you don't care about scratches & rubs.

I advise that you load TV's in a TV box, unless you're OK with a definite increased risk of TV problems.  The effect of the TV box is not that there's a box around the TV, but that the foam spacers create an air gap in front of the TV screen so that no pressure from the box even reaches the TV screen.  The foam spacers also act as a cushion to help absorb vibrations.  

Things with fragile legs  & sometime fragile casters that can't be removed should either have the legs taken off, or be flipped upside down, put on top, & filled with light weight mish-mesh, such as is shown in the above picture.

Fabric cushion chairs should ideally be plastic wrapped or blanket wrapped, and usually loaded front end down, legs to wall, back to the ceiling, up high as top-loader like this last picture, where the back end is protected by the ceiling and can't be stretched out.  Make sure the front ends that are facing down are on a flat surface that can't deform the material (nothing poky).  Sometimes they can be set on their feet up high, but only if only light fluffy flat things go on the seat, and they are still put up on top near the ceiling.

Most recliners can have their backs removed.  These are best put up on top of everything with only light things on them at most.  This is because fabric is easily stretched out and deformed if there's things pressing into the fabric.

Use hand-trucks, floor-dollies, and carrying-straps to take the weight were possible, rather than straining.  U-Haul sells these body-harness carrying straps called a "Shoulder Dolly".

If you are straining, do it differently, use the right equipment, or get more help.  

Rolling is a lot easier and safer than carrying.

The mattress should go aginst the previous wall, followed by the box-springs on the outside, with the soft side of the box-springs facing out.  This is because the mattress conforms to the irregular bumps of the load better, and the good side of the box springs makes for a much more optimal surface to protect and go against following items such as the back side of a sofa.

 You could even line up two or three sets of mats & box-springs all together, on a couple rows of boxes.

Mattress and box-springs are the best thing to make  tie-off-wall out of because they are wide and flat and much softer than a piece of hard furniture that could press into and deform the back of a sofa that's leaning against it.   It's definitely better to use ratchet straps to hold a tie off wall, because they're flatter, stronger, they don't stretch, and they don't dig into the wall item nearly as bad as rope.

For smaller mattresses and box springs, it may be needed to put down rows of boxes underneath, to raise the box spring & mattress high enough to hold back the top-loader behind it near the ceiling.  The boxes being on the floor like this is also the best place for extra heavy boxes.  You might need these boxes for this purpose, so if you do, don't use up all the boxes in the previous load walls, save some.

  Note that the previous picture of a tie-off wall has the box-springs with the under side facing out, which puts the much more damaging side (with staples & poky parts) against whatever follows such as the back side of a leather sofa, which you SHOULD NOT DO.   The soft flat top of the box-springs should face the outside, to provide the optimal protective surface against the back side of a sofa.   

To the sides of this tie off wall is often a good place to put things like big long rolled-up rugs, bed railings or other pole type things.   Sometimes a double stack of boxes is needed to raise the tie off wall high enough to hold back the top-loader stuff behind it.

Harbor Freight ratchet straps are the cheapest and have the right hook size to fit behind the truck's rub railings.   The rope or ratchet strap should not go straight across to the railing, but rather should go behind the plane of the wall, pulling the load-wall towards the front of the truck, with the strap going around the rub-railing knob, and then heading to the back end of the truck as shown in this last picture.  This holds the load more solidly, and prevents the railing from being pulled straight across the truck which can break the rub railing, and instead pulls the pressure parallel to to the wall which is the direction that the railing can handle ten times as much pressure.  Remember that the amount of pressure on the railing multiplies many times when under the load of the truck jerking & going up a steep hill, and that the "strait across" tie down method CAN AND DOES BREAK RAILINGS, which U-Haul makes you pay for.

ADVICE #23

AFTER THE TIE OFF WALL

Usually, the best place for a big sofa is on-end, leaning with it's back-side against the tie off wall (a mattress or box-springs), legs against the wall of the truck.   Sofas should be pad-wrapped, unless the condition of the sofas is a low priority compared to their priority of speed & ease.  Note that the weight of the sofa on the left (in the last picture) is put on the frame via some folded blankets, rather than on the arm of the sofa, which might deform it.

If the priority is speed & cost, with a low priority of the condition of the sofas, then you could skip the pre-pad-wrapping, and instead carry a sofa straight out to the truck.  In this case, the side of the up-ended sofa that's against the floor should be put on a moving blanket so that it never touches the floor.  

It's usually better to pad-wrap your sofas, but if you choose the right items to go around them you can probably get away with not pad wrapping your sofas, if it's not a "high end" job.  Or you can drape some blankets around them after the sofas are loaded.  We are talking "non professional" just doing the best you can with time-conservation in mind, so given the difficulty of dealing with all the blanketing you can just get the sofas loaded, and understand there is an increased risk of dirt and damage.

If your sofa is not pad-wrapped, then once you get it up in the truck near where its going, tip it up on end onto on a blanket that you have already laid out on the truck floor, and use the blanket like handles to lift & help scoot the sofa into place, while on end and on the blanket, legs against the wall, back of the sofa to the load-wall, which would preferably be a soft box-spring front or something very flat with nothing poking out.

This last picture showns an unpadwrapped sofa, box-springs elevated on a row of boxes, padded railings tucked to the side, standard double ratchet straps holding the tie off wall.  You should be using this combo unless you have a good reason not to.

you could put a love seat opposite the sofa, and a refrigerator standing up between them.  Then the rest of the empty space of that load-wall could be filled with lighter boxes, like wardrobe boxes, and cushions and such.  The seat of the on-end sofa is good place to slip in a coffie table sized slab of glass, protected between the cushions and the sofa seat bottom.

ADVICE #24

SWITCHING TO GARAGE & OUTSIDE STUFF

After the extra deep load-wall of your sofas (and refrigerator or such), after you've well protected your exposed sofa areas with blanketing and cardboard, your walls can become increasingly shorter, and shift towards garage and outside stuff like a table saw, patio furniture, lawnmower, planter pots and the barbecue.  Here it's important to stack everything up tight so there's no room to shift around.  

ADVICE #25

THE LAST TIE OFF AT THE END

Right at the door, or at the end of your load, you need another tie-off (or multiple tie-offs) so that the items on the end can't shift and push against the door.  

Attach your strap ends on the rub railing early, and leave the straps just hanging loose towards the door opening,  BEFORE you fill in the the last bit of stuff at the end of the truck.  This is because if you fill in the last bit of stuff first, before you try to attach your ratchet straps, there's many times you'd be blocked off from being able to  reach the right part of the rub railing where you want to hook your ratchets.  Instead, hook on your strap ends before you block yourself off from being able to reach your desired attachment point.

If you're going to drive in the rain or go across country, put some blanketing on the floor by the door, to help keep the water from running into the truck.

If you're putting planter pots down, put cardboard between them or they're likely to smack into each other and crack.

When you're all done, lock up that back door.

ADVICE #27    GET FREE ADVICE

If you find that this advice page doesn't answer your questions sufficiently, or you run into problems, we here at A Great Moving Crew are happy to help with whatever other free advice you might need, so feel free to call anytime.  It's also free to text AGMC some pictures of your load in progress, and AGMC will reply back with compliments or warnings.

 Call any time, it's free.