How to Pack a Wardrobe and Hanging Clothes for a Move

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/photos/1760594386925-519fba2ad5ba)

By Mick — handyman, Newcastle NSW.

Removalists love wardrobe boxes. They charge you $25 each to hire from Kennards, you need eight of them for a 5-bedroom house, and at the other end you fold them up and hand them back. Two hundred bucks down the drain for what is, structurally, a tall cardboard box with a metal rail through the top. I’ll show you the version that works just as well, costs nothing, and fits Aussie wardrobes properly.

The trick is the humble black bin liner. Cut a slit in the closed end, push it up over a bunch of hangers (rail and all), tie the open end around the hanger hooks, and you’ve got a portable garment bag. Twenty hangers per bag, takes 10 seconds to make. I’ve moved my own clothes this way three houses running.

The Aussie gotcha: most Bunnings wardrobe boxes are 1370 mm tall, sized for the US standard closet rail height of 1750 mm. Aussie built-in robes (BIRs) often have rails at 1850 mm or higher, which means the bottom of long dresses and trousers drag along the bottom of the box and crease badly. Bin liners adapt to whatever length you’ve got.

What you’ll need

Heavy-duty black bin liners — 80 L or 120 L (Coles Home Brand are fine)
A box cutter or scissors
String or zip ties
Permanent marker (label by room/owner)
Optional: 1–2 actual wardrobe boxes for delicate or expensive pieces
Tissue paper for shoes and folded knits
Vacuum bags for bedding/jumpers

Step 1: Sort hanging clothes into batches of ~20

Pull 20 hangers off the rail at a time and lay them flat on the bed. Twenty hangers is what an 80 L bin liner takes comfortably. If you’ve got dense winter coats, drop to 15. Wedding dress, ball gowns, $800 suits — those go in a real wardrobe box, separately. Everything else is bin liner candidate.

Step 2: Cut the slit in the closed end

Bin liner held vertical, closed end up. Box cutter, make a 4 cm slit dead centre of the closed seam. Don’t go bigger or the liner will tear in transit.

Step 3: Slide the bag down over the hangers

Hold the 20 hangers by their hooks, all facing the same way, and feed the hooks up through the slit from inside the bag. The hooks come out the top, the clothes stay covered inside. The bag now drapes over the clothes like a giant garment bag.

Step 4: Tie the open end

The original opening of the bin liner now sits below the clothes. Gather it loosely (don’t squeeze the clothes) and tie with string or zip-tie. This stops the bag from blowing open in the truck and it keeps shoes from migrating into your shirts.

Bin liner garment bag — slit at top for hangers, tie at bottom

Step 5: Label with marker on the outside

“Mick — work shirts” or “Sarah — winter coats” written big on the outside of the bag in marker. At the other end you can identify which bag goes to which wardrobe without opening anything.

Step 6: Pack shoes separately

Don’t put shoes in with hanging clothes. Shoes go in their own boxes — original shoeboxes if you’ve kept them, otherwise pack pairs in supermarket tote bags with the soles facing the same way. Tissue paper inside boots stops them collapsing in storage.

Step 7: Vacuum-bag bulky knits and bedding

Jumpers, doonas, blankets — vacuum storage bags ($10 for a 2-pack at Kmart) shrink them by 75%. Don’t put suits or coats in vacuum bags; the compression sets creases that take weeks to hang out.

Step 8: Use real wardrobe boxes for the awkward stuff

Hire 1–2 from Kennards for the things bin liners don’t suit:

Wedding dress / formalwear with structured shoulders
Long winter coats and trench coats
Anything dry-clean-only with sequins or embroidery
Suits you wear weekly (these need to come out first at the new house)

That’s $50 of hire instead of $200, and you’ve protected the irreplaceable stuff properly.

Step 9: Load the bin liners into the truck flat or hung

If the truck has a wardrobe rail, hang the bin liners on it directly. If not, lay them flat on top of the soft cargo (mattresses, sofa cushions) right at the end of the load. Don’t stack heavy boxes on top — even in a bin liner, fabric crushes.

Step 10: At the new house, hang straight away

The first thing you do at the new place — before unpacking kitchen, before anything — is hang clothes. Untie the bottom of each bag, slide the hanger hooks onto the new rail, then pull the bag off downwards from below. Done. Twenty pieces hung in 30 seconds, no creasing, no folding.

Throw the used bin liners in the bin or save them for actual rubbish later — they’re not pretty enough for a second move.

The Mick rule

You’re moving cardboard around, not gold bullion. Wardrobe boxes are a removalist upsell — $25 a box for cardboard with a stick is rough. The bin liner method has moved my clothes from Newcastle to Sydney to Brisbane and back, no creases, no losses, no extra cost. Save the proper boxes for the dress that cost $2,000 and the suits you actually wear, bin-liner everything else, and you’ll save enough to buy beer for the mates helping you load the truck.

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