How many moving boxes do you actually need?
Most people guess low by about a third. Here is the room by room count we see on real North Shore moves, from a studio to a four bedroom house.
· 6 min read · By Brad Rutty
The question we get asked most is also the hardest one to answer over the phone. Two homes with the same number of bedrooms can need wildly different crate counts, because what fills a house is not bedrooms, it is kitchens, books, linen and the cupboard nobody has opened since 2019.
Here is the honest guide we use ourselves, based on hires across the North Shore and Northern Beaches. Our crates hold about 68 litres each, roughly a large removalist carton, and they stack five high on a dolly.
Room by room crate counts
- Kitchen: 8 to 12 crates. Plates, glassware, pantry, small appliances. Always the biggest surprise.
- Living room: 4 to 8 crates. Books, records, media, decor. Books alone can eat four.
- Each bedroom: 4 to 6 crates. Clothes that are not on hangers, bedside contents, shoes.
- Linen and bathroom: 3 to 5 crates. Towels and bedding are bulky but light, so fill these to the lid.
- Home office: 3 to 6 crates. Paperwork, cables, monitors if you have kept the original foam.
- Garage and laundry: 4 to 10 crates. Tools, cleaning gear, camping equipment, the sports bag graveyard.
The quick answer by home size
- Studio or one bedroom apartment: 20 to 25 crates.
- Two bedroom apartment or small house: 40 to 50 crates.
- Three bedroom house: 60 to 75 crates.
- Four bedroom family home: 90 to 110 crates.
Our packs are built around those numbers, and because we hire from five crates up you can also just order the exact count you want rather than rounding up to a pack.
What people underestimate
Three things blow the count out every time. Kitchens, because you pack them last and by then you are tired of thinking. Books, because a crate of books is heavy long before it is full, so you end up using more crates and filling them halfway. And garages, because a garage is not a room, it is a landfill with a roller door.
If you are torn between two numbers, take the higher one. An unused crate costs a few dollars. A midnight run for cardboard on moving day costs your evening.
What you should not put in a crate
Framed art, mirrors and TVs travel better in purpose built cartons with corner protection. Long items like brooms, lamps and pot plants go loose in the truck. Anything liquid should be bagged and boxed separately, because a lid keeps rain out but it will not save your linen from a leaking bottle of olive oil.
Book the count, not the guess
Use the slider on our home page to price any number of crates from five up, or ring us with a quick description of the house. We would rather talk you into the right count than sell you a pack you do not need.
Written by Brad Rutty
Owner and driver, Wombat Crates
Brad runs Wombat Crates, which most days means he is the one loading the van before six. He delivers and collects plastic moving crates across every suburb between the Harbour Bridge and Palm Beach: walk-ups off Military Road, houses with a long run of steps down to the door, apartments where the whole job has to fit inside a two-hour lift booking.
These guides are written out of that rather than out of research, which is why some of them will tell you to use cardboard instead. If one is wrong, he is the one who got it wrong, and the one to ring about it.
Prices quoted are ours, in AUD including GST, and correct as of the date shown above. Council rules, fees and third-party prices change; check them at the source before you rely on them.