Not every move needs full service. A couple moving out of a one-bedroom apartment with a week to pack and no specialty items can handle the packing themselves without much risk. But most moves are not that simple, and most people who try to manage the packing, coordination, and logistics of a significant home move on their own wish they had not.
Full-service moving is worth considering when any of the following are true.
Your timeline is compressed. St. Johns County's real estate market moves fast. Homes sell quickly, closing dates land sooner than expected, and the gap between "we accepted an offer" and "we need to be out" can be shorter than anyone planned for. A professional packing crew can pack a four-bedroom home in a day. Most families doing it themselves take a week or more while managing work, children, and the other demands of a home sale.
Your home contains items that need more than standard handling. Artwork, antiques, custom furniture, pianos, wine collections, and high-value personal property are a consistent feature of St. Augustine and St. Johns County homes - particularly in communities like Palencia, Sawgrass, and along the Intracoastal waterfront. These items do not get packed in newspaper and standard boxes. They need the right materials, the right technique, and in some cases custom crating. Getting this wrong is expensive.
You are managing the move from a distance. A significant share of inbound St. Augustine moves involve people who have never lived here - relocating from another state for work, retirement, or a lifestyle change. Coordinating a move into a home you have only seen on a video walkthrough, in a county whose HOA requirements and access conditions you do not yet know, is considerably more manageable when one coordinator is handling the details rather than you doing it from a hotel room in another city.
You simply want the move handled. This is a legitimate reason. Moving is physically and logistically demanding. If handing the entire process to a professional crew is what makes the experience tolerable, that is a reasonable decision.
What is included and what is not
Full service means different things at different companies. Here is exactly what A-Turner's full-service option covers, and what falls outside it.
Included:
- A dedicated move coordinator assigned to your move from booking through final delivery
- All packing materials supplied - boxes, paper, bubble wrap, wardrobe boxes, specialty wrapping
- Professional packing of every room, every box labeled by room and contents
- Free stretch wrapping of all upholstered furniture
- Free protection for doorways, floors, and banisters at origin and destination
- Loading, transport, and delivery by background-checked employee movers
- Furniture placement at the destination per your direction
- Reassembly of items disassembled at pickup
- Unpacking and complete removal of all packing materials and debris
Not automatically included but available:
- Custom crating for high-value artwork, antiques, or unusually shaped items
- Specialty handling for pianos, pool tables, and large appliances - assessed during the pre-move survey and added as needed
- Vehicle shipping for long-distance moves
- Storage between move-out and move-in when dates do not align
Not included in any move:
- Items that cannot legally travel on a moving truck - hazardous materials, propane, certain cleaning chemicals, open containers
- Pets and plants
- Items you have chosen to transport personally - documents, medications, jewelry, and irreplaceable items are better in your own vehicle
The pre-move survey - where full service actually starts
The survey is not a formality. It is the step that determines whether the rest of the process goes smoothly or not.
Your move coordinator schedules a free in-home or virtual walkthrough before anything else happens. During the survey, they assess the full volume of items to be moved, identify everything that needs specialty handling, confirm truck access conditions at your St. Augustine address, check any HOA or building requirements for commercial vehicles, and produce a written estimate that accurately reflects the actual job.
For St. Augustine specifically, this pre-move assessment matters more than in most markets. Historic downtown properties have street and parking constraints that affect truck size and positioning. Newer communities in northern St. Johns County - Palencia, Nocatee, TrailMark - have gate protocols and move-in windows that need advance coordination. Waterfront properties on Anastasia Island and along the Intracoastal have driveway and access conditions that vary significantly by lot. None of this is discovered on move day. It is covered in the survey.
What happens when your new home is not ready
St. Johns County's pace creates a specific and common problem. Your home sells. Closing happens. Your next property is not ready yet - a new build that slipped its completion date, another closing that moved, or a destination that simply was not confirmed when you had to be out.
The full-service process extends naturally into storage when this happens. We complete the packing and loading at your St. Augustine home, transport your belongings to our climate-controlled Gainesville warehouse, and hold everything under your move coordinator's oversight until your destination is ready. Delivery is scheduled on your timeline. You move out once. Your belongings move in once. There is no secondary move from a temporary rental, no double handling, and no exposure of your items to an uncontrolled storage environment.
Our household storage and furniture storage pages cover the storage options in more detail.
Partial packing - when you want some of the benefit without all of it
Full-service packing is not all or nothing. If you prefer to pack your own clothes and books but want professional hands on the kitchen, the breakables, and the items most likely to be damaged in transit, we offer fragile-only packing and room-by-room packing as standalone options.
The kitchen is the room where most self-packing mistakes happen - wrong box sizes, plates packed flat instead of vertical, glassware without individual cell protection. The fragile-only option covers the kitchen, artwork, mirrors, and any room-specific items you identify as high risk, while you handle the rest. You pay for the portion of packing you actually need rather than the full service you do not.
Talk through the options with your move coordinator during the estimate. The right combination is the one that fits your timeline, your items, and your budget - not a fixed package.
Moving within Florida or heading out of state?
Full-service moving works the same way regardless of distance. The packing, protection, and coordinator oversight are identical whether your new address is in Jacksonville or in Atlanta.
For moves to another Florida city, our intrastate moving team handles the transport with flat-rate pricing. For moves crossing state lines, our long-distance movers coordinate the full relocation through the North American Van Lines network with GPS-tracked transport and delivery to any destination in the country.
Get a free full-service estimate
Request a free estimate to connect with a dedicated move coordinator. We will schedule a walkthrough of your St. Augustine home, scope the full-service option for your specific situation, and give you a clear itemized price before anything is scheduled. If you are comparing full service against doing it yourself, your coordinator can walk through both options so you have a real basis for comparison.
