Why kitchens break moves
The kitchen is the hardest room in any house: it's the densest, the heaviest per box, and almost everything in it shatters. It's also where self-packers lose the most — usually to three mistakes: boxes that are too big, packing paper that's actually newspaper, and glasses laid flat.
The kit that actually matters
Double-walled boxes only — a single-wall box of crockery fails at the bottom, always. Use small boxes for anything ceramic or glass; a big box of plates is a back injury with handles. White packing paper, not newspaper: newsprint ink transfers onto china and takes serious scrubbing to remove. Finish with strong tape (three strips across the base) and a marker for labelling.
Plates, glasses and the vertical rule
Plates travel on their edges, like records — never flat. Wrap each in paper, stack them vertically with crumpled paper beneath and between, and they can survive a pothole that would crack a flat stack.
Glasses and mugs get wrapped individually, stuffed with paper inside, and stood upright — rims down, never on their sides. Stemware gets double paper and its own corner. If a box rattles when you lift it, it isn't finished: add paper until it's silent.
Appliances and the last-morning box
Fridges and freezers need defrosting a full 24 hours ahead, doors propped open, shelves out and wrapped separately. Washing machines need their drum secured — transit bolts if you kept them, a folded towel wedged in if you didn't.
Keep back one open box for moving morning: kettle, mugs, tea, teaspoons, cloths. It's the first box opened in the new house and the difference between a hard day and a civilised one.