Packing & Unpacking Services in Hillsboro & Greater Portland
Family-Owned & Operated | ODOT #275978 · USDOT #3604556 | $56.40/hr Per Packer: Published, No Hidden Fees | Google 4.8★ Rated | Open 7 AM–10 PM, Every Day
Packing is where moves are won or lost, before the truck ever shows up. Butterfield Moving's packing crews box entire homes and offices across Hillsboro, Beaverton, Aloha, Portland, and the rest of Greater Portland at a published $56.40 per hour per packer, with proper materials and a labeling system your unpacking will thank you for.
Book a dedicated pack day before your move, and everything is boxed, labeled, and staged when the truck arrives, the single smartest money most moves can spend. Or add packers to move day itself, or hand us just the kitchen and the breakables. One reviewer watched us pack her whole home and put it simply: 'Couldn't believe how fast they packed my things! Yet nothing was broken or marred!' (Susan N., Google review)
Full pack, partial pack, unpacking, or supplies only, tell Patrick or Amy what you're facing on the estimate call, and you'll get an honest recommendation, including “you don't need us for that” when you don't.
$56.40/hr Per Packer
Two packers $112.80, three $169.20, four $225.60. Published, flat, and the same rate whether we pack one room or the whole house.
Pack Day Before Move Day
Packing completed ahead of the move bills at packer rates, not moving-crew rates. Your budget will notice.
Labeled, Not Guessed
Every box marked by room and contents, fragile boxes flagged, so unpacking is an afternoon, not a month.
Professional Materials
Commercial stretch film, packing paper, proper boxes in four sizes, TV boxes, and mattress bags on request.
Reviewed by Name
Greater Portland families review our packers personally. Read the live feed below.
Patrick and Amy Answer Every Call
Patrick and Amy take the calls and book the moves, 7 AM–10 PM, every day, with Patrick handling the walk-throughs.
Three Packing Decisions That Decide How Your Move Goes
Pack the day before, or pack on move day
The same boxes cost very different amounts of money, depending on when they're filled. Packing done on a dedicated day before your move bills at $56.40 per hour per packer. The identical work done on move day happens at moving-crew rates, $150.35 to $263.15 an hour, while your loaded truck waits. For anything bigger than a one-bedroom, the pack-day math usually wins by a wide margin, and we'll run it with you on the estimate call.
There’s a second benefit nobody prices: a packed home loads faster. Move-day hours at $150.35–$263.15 shrink when the crew walks into staged, labeled boxes instead of open closets, so a pack day partly pays for itself before the first box is even opened at the other end.
Decision 1
What you pack yourself, and what that means when something breaks
Here's the fine print, no mover volunteers: coverage on a box the mover never packed is hard to claim, because nobody can prove how the contents were padded. Pack your books and linens yourself all day long. But dishes, glass, electronics, and anything you'd be sick to lose belong in boxes packed by people who do it every week, with paper, position, and box-size discipline that holds up on Highway 26. The split most budgets land on: you pack books, linens, clothes, and toys; we pack the kitchen, glass, art, lamps, and electronics. Half the labor cost, all of the protection where it counts.
Decision 2
Real boxes, or whatever the grocery store had
Used produce boxes are free for a reason: inconsistent sizes stack badly in a truck, absorbed moisture has already weakened them, and Oregon rain finishes the job. Proper moving boxes in four sizes: small $6.30, medium $7.45, large $9.45, wardrobe $31.55, and dedicated TV box $55.85 per use. Stack them tightly, stay dry longer, and protect what's inside them. On a whole-house move, the box upgrade costs less than one broken dish set.
Decision 3
Every Packing Job, From One Cabinet to a Whole Campus
No two packing jobs ask for the same thing. A four-bedroom family home headed across town needs a different plan than a retiree compressing forty years into a two-bedroom condo, and an office that has to reopen Monday needs a different plan than either. This is the full menu, and the estimate call is where we match it to your situation, including the parts you can confidently do yourself.
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• Entire homes: every room, closet, garage, and balcony
• Entire apartments and condos before the month-end turnover
• Estates and large homes (4,000+ sq ft): multi-day pack plans
• Senior and downsizing packs: patient pace, sorting help, family coordination
• Pack-and-move combinations with the same crew end to end
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• Kitchens, dishware, and glassware: the rooms most people dread
• Fragile-only packs: art, lamps, mirrors, collectibles, electronics
• Closet and wardrobe packing
• Garage, shop, and storage-area packing
• 'Everything we didn't get to' rescue packs the day before a move
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• Room-by-room unpacking at your direction
• Kitchen-first setups so the house works that night
• Box breakdown and stacking for disposal
• Furniture placement and re-placement until it's right
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• Office contents, files, and workstations: labeled to a floor plan
• Retail stock and fixtures
• Pack-ahead evenings and weekends around your business hours
• Certificates of insurance for your building, usually within an hour
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• Boxes: Small $6.30 · Medium $7.45 · Large $9.45 · Wardrobe $31.55
• TV boxes: $55.85 per use, or $199.65 to buy
• Packing paper, stretch film, and tape: professional grade
• Mattress bags available for a fee (we'll recommend buying your own: it's cheaper for you)
How a Butterfield Packing Job Runs
The estimate call: what's being packed, and when
Patrick and Amy ask about rooms, fragile items, and your move date, then recommend the cheapest configuration that actually works.
Supplies counted and brought: no mid-job runs
We arrive with the boxes, paper, film, and tape the walk-through called for. You pay published supply prices, not a 'materials' mystery line. Box counts come from the walk-through, not a guess, and leftover unused boxes don’t get billed. You pay for what the job used.
Pack day runs room by room
Kitchens and breakables get the most careful hands; books go in small boxes, linens in large, and weight discipline that protects both the boxes and the movers. Every box is labeled by room and contents, fragile boxes flagged and stacked apart.
Staging for the truck
Packed boxes get staged by room near the load path, heaviest first, so move-day loading is fast, which matters because move-day bills are at moving-crew rates.
Move day: or your move day with another plan
Most packing customers move with us, same crew thread end to end. But a pack-only job is a real service too; we'll pack you for a POD, a rental truck, or a storage unit and wish you well.
Unpacking, if you want it
At the new home, we'll unpack room by room at your direction, set the kitchen first, break down the empties, and keep adjusting placement until you call it done. Unpacking bills at the same per-packer rate, and for downsizing moves, it’s often the half people actually need, because deciding where things live in a smaller home is the hard part.
Packing Rates: Published, Not Hidden
Packing day adds up fast when every box, hour, and roll of tape is a hidden line item. We bill packing the same way we bill moving, by the hour, at rates you can see before you book.
Packing labor
dedicated pack day
1 packer: $56.40 per hour
2 packers: $112.80 per hour
3 packers: $169.20 per hour
4 packers: $225.60 per hour
Each additional packer: $56.40 per hour
Supplies
Small box $6.30 · Medium $7.45 · Large $9.45 · Wardrobe $31.55
TV box $55.85 per use · $199.65 to buy
Paper, film, and tape billed at published supply pricing: itemized, never bundled into mystery fees
Packing
Packing on move day
Billed at the moving-crew rate: $150.35/hr (2 movers) · $206.75/hr (3) · $263.15/hr (4). It works, but the pack-day rate above is the smarter spend on anything past a one-bedroom.
Overtime moving rates
2 movers: $195.20 per hour
3 movers, $273.40 per hour
4 movers, $351.60 per hour
Holiday rate (3-hour minimum): 2 movers $230.50 per hour · 3 movers $325.50 · 4 movers $420.50
No deposits. No minimum room requirements. Unpacking bills at the same packer rates. Your exact number, rooms, packers, hours, and supplies come from the free estimate call or walk-through.
Our Reviews
Real Packing Jobs, Real Customers
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A customer ran out of time before her move, small random items everywhere, big awkward pieces unboxed, a home's worth of loose ends. The crew packed, wrapped, disassembled, and loaded all of it in a single visit, clearing every room, closet, balcony, and garage. Her review: 'These guys somehow worked their magic… insanely fast.' That rescue-pack scenario is one we handle every month. (C. K., Google review) If your calendar has already lost the packing battle, say so on the call, it changes the crew we send, not the respect you get.
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Speed that breaks things isn't speed; it's damage on a schedule. One customer watched her cherished belongings packed at a pace she 'couldn't believe', and confirmed afterward that not one item arrived broken or marred. Box-size discipline, paper, and labeling are what make fast and safe the same thing. (Susan N., Google review)
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A disabled veteran tried to back out of her move twice, it simply felt like too much. Logan and Matt gently kept it possible: packed and moved her belongings, then stacked the boxes inside her storage area instead of leaving them on the porch as she'd offered to accept. 'You definitely hired a rare crew, very memorable… in all the right ways.' (H. M., Google review)
Butterfield Moving vs. larger regional movers
| Feature | Butterfield Moving | Larger Regional Movers |
|---|---|---|
| Packing rate published | Yes, $56.40/hr per packer | Quote-form mystery |
| Pack-day vs move-day math | Explained on the call | Packed at premium rates, unexplained |
| Supply pricing | Published per box | Bundled 'materials fee' |
| Box labeling | Room + contents + fragile flags | Varies by crew |
| Partial packs welcome | Yes, even one kitchen | Full-pack minimums common |
| Pack-only jobs (no move) | Yes | Rarely accepted |
| Unpacking offered | Yes, at packer rates | Often unavailable |
| Who packs | The same named crew customers' review by name | Day-labor staffing varies |
| Deposit to book | None | Often required |
| Honest 'you don't need us' | Yes, we say it weekly | Never |
Packing for Oregon Is Its Own Discipline
Cardboard versus eight months of rain
October through May, every box that crosses a wet walkway is a structural question. Boxes that sat in a damp garage for a week fail at the bottom seam on move day. We pack with dry, new boxes, keep packed stacks off concrete floors, and stretch-wrap what the rain will touch, because in Washington County, 'it might rain on move day' is just called a forecast.
Month-end apartment turnover, and why pack day beats it
Apartment moves across Tanasbourne, Orenco, and the rest of Washington County pile onto month-end weekends, elevators booked, loading zones contested. A midweek pack day before a month-end move shortens the expensive, contested part of the move to hours. It's the single best scheduling trick in the apartment playbook.
Heat, and the box that shouldn't ride in a July truck
Greater Portland summers bring 90-degree stretches, and a closed box truck runs hotter. Candles soften, vinyl records warp, and pressurized cans are a no. On summer packs, we flag heat-sensitive items and route them to your car, a thirty-second conversation that has saved more than one record collection.
What moisture does after the move
Boxes that go into storage damp, grow mold by spring. When a pack is headed for a storage unit, including our partner facility in Hillsboro, we pack dry, flag anything moisture-sensitive, and tell you plainly what shouldn't be stored in cardboard at all.
The downsizing wave
A large share of Westside packing work is downsizing, decades of a household compressed into a smaller home. Those packs need patience more than speed: sorting time, keep-donate-discard decisions, and a crew that doesn't rush a customer through her own belongings. Ours doesn't; it's why families request the same packers back.
New-construction storage math
Hillsboro and Bethany's newer townhomes trade storage space for square footage, small garages, and few closets. Downsizing into one is partly a packing problem: what gets unpacked, what stays boxed and labeled for the garage rack, and what goes to storage. Labeling discipline at pack time is what makes that sorting possible at the other end.
Evening and weekend packs, Westside schedules
Two-commuter households can't always host a Tuesday 9 AM pack crew. Saturdays bill at standard rates, and evening packs are workable within our 7 AM–10 PM window. Tell us what your week looks like, and we'll schedule around it.
What Professional Packing Actually Involves
Box-size discipline: the rule that prevents most breakage
Heavy goes small, light goes big. Books, tools, and canned goods belong in small boxes a mover can actually lift with control; linens, lampshades, and plastics fill the large ones. Most DIY breakage traces to one oversized, overweight box that crushed what was under it or failed mid-carry. Weight discipline is the cheapest protection there is.
Electronics and TVs
TVs ride in dedicated TV boxes ($55.85 per use), padded at the corners where panels actually crack. Cables get bagged and labeled to their device. Original boxes, if you kept them, are still the best packaging ever made for that device, tell us and we'll use them.
What we won't pack: and what rides with you
We don't pack or transport hazardous materials, propane, or ammunition; firearms move only unloaded. And some things shouldn't ride in any truck: passports, medications, jewelry, hard drives, and anything irreplaceable belong in your car. We'll hand you that list on the confirmation call, every time.
Dishes and glassware: paper, position, and the vertical rule
Plates travel on edge, vertical, like records, never stacked flat. Each piece gets wrapped in packing paper, the box gets a crumpled-paper base and cap, and the finished box is marked fragile with this-side-up orientation. Packed this way, a dish box survives a truck; packed flat with newspaper, it survives a countertop.
Wardrobes, closets, and soft goods
Hanging clothes move efficiently, folded soft goods become the truck's padding inventory, filling voids and cushioning furniture tiers. A good packing crew packs the truck's protection at the same time it packs your closet. Out-of-season clothes are also the easiest early win: packed a week ahead, they cost you nothing in daily life and take a third of the closet work off the final pack day.
Coverage and the owner-packed box
Released-value coverage, the $0.60-per-pound Oregon default, gets complicated when a box the mover never packed arrives with something broken inside, because no one can show how it was padded. The boxes we pack carry our workmanship: if something we packed and moved is damaged, we will submit a claim upon request. It's one more reason the fragile rooms are worth professional hands.
The labeling system your future self will thank
Every box gets a room, a contents summary, and a fragile flag where it applies. At the new home, boxes land in the rooms they're labeled for, which turns unpacking from a month of archaeology into an afternoon of opening the right boxes in the right order. Kitchen first, always. We also flag the open-first box for each room, sheets and a lamp for bedrooms, paper towels and a kettle for the kitchen, so the first night in the new home runs on labels instead of luck.
Packing Questions, Answered Straight
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One to two weeks for most homes; more for summer month-ends. The pack day itself usually lands one or two days before the move, so boxes don't get in your way for a week.
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A kitchen-and-fragiles partial is often one or two packers for a few hours. Full homes typically run two to four packers, depending on room count and clutter level. The estimate call sizes it, and you only pay the per-packer rate for the crew that comes.
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For the walkthrough and the decisions, yes, what's trash versus treasure isn't a call we make for you. After that, plenty of customers run errands while the crew works.
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Yes, partial packing is a real service, not an upsell failure. Kitchens and fragile-only packs are the most common requests we get.
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Yes. Boxes, paper, film, and tape arrive with the crew, billed at the published prices above. If you've already bought boxes, we'll happily use yours.
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Hazardous materials, propane, ammunition, and perishable food generally. Firearms move unloaded only. Heat-sensitive items get flagged for your car in summer. When in doubt, ask; the honest no comes free.
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We break down empties and stack them neatly for disposal or recycling pickup. If you bought your boxes from us to keep, even better, they store flat.
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Self-packed boxes are the gray area of moving coverage; claims about them are hard to substantiate across the industry. Pack the unbreakables yourself and let us take the fragile items; it's the configuration that protects both your things and your budget.
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Yes, offices, files, workstations, and retail stock, labeled to a floor plan, with evening and weekend pack windows, and a certificate of insurance for your building, usually within an hour.
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Yes, padded, paper-wrapped, and boxed or sleeved appropriately, with orientation flags on the boxes. Large glass and framed pieces travel padded and upright between anchored furniture tiers in the truck. For genuinely high-value pieces, ask about specialty handling, same crew, more time budgeted.
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Yes. Pack-only jobs are a real service; we’ll box and label everything for whatever’s carrying it, and if it’s headed to storage, we pack dry and flag what shouldn’t live in cardboard long-term. If you’d like loading help too, that’s our loading and unloading service, same published approach.
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Two packers for a half-day run a few hundred dollars at $112.80 per hour, usually less than the same packing done at move-day crew rates, and far less than one broken china cabinet. Your exact number comes from the free call.
Ready to Be Packed, Not Panicked?
One call prices your pack day, your supplies, and your move, from the family company Greater Portland reviews by name. Whether that call ends with four packers booked for Thursday or with honest advice to handle it yourselves and save the money, either answer is a good call from where we sit.
