A First-Class Move

AFCM provided by far the best moving experience we’ve had. It was a fairly complicated move, from one storage unit to multiple locations and over a long distance. There was a lot of good communication leading up to the move, by email and by phone, to assure we were on the same page. Everything was kept in really good shape and organized very well at the end locations. Unlike most movers that drop everything and leave, they helped unpack furniture, set it up and even offered to buy us replacement screws for ones that we had lost. Both the owner and the movers were professional the whole time, but also with a very personal touch.

A First Class Move was easily the best and most accommodating of any movers I’ve worked with. I’ve moved often myself, but this particular move involved moving my mother into an apartment after she’d lived in a house for more than 60 years. To say this was a major transition is an understatement. BeckyAnn and her staff of movers made this experience as positive and painless as possible, considering the circumstances of making a transition like this. I believe they are worth every penny that they charged, because of the extra care they all take in their work, and their helpfulness was greatly appreciated. I would recommend them highly.

A First Class Move provided an absolutely extraordinary experience for me and my family, moving my mother from her residence of 40+ years into assisted living, and then helping us sort, ship, sell, or store the remainder of her possessions. Finally, AFCM provided top-​notch prep-​to-​sell services, enabling our family to obtain top dollar for a well-​worn home they made shine.
Our family engaged A First Class Move, after interviewing three moving services, upon the recommendation of the Executive Director of the assisted living facility my mother had chosen for her next phase of life. This was not an easy process, in any way, although I really cannot think how much more difficult it would have been without the attention to detail Beckyanne and her team brought to the entire process.
We had four major phases: getting Mother’s selected furniture and priceless items packed, moved, and placed in her apartment in assisted living in the Spring of 2012. Then, in the late summer and fall of that year, AFCM packed the rest of her belongings, into four different categories: sell; store in McLean; ship to my brother’s in Canada (stored separately in McLean for an interim period); and ship to my own storage facility in Portland OR.
The first phase — getting Mom’s most precious and personal items packed, moved and set up in her new assisted living apartment in the Spring — went more smoothly than I ever could have hoped. As everyone who has been through this process will understand, Mother had difficulty adhering to a schedule, making decisions, and sticking to the plan. Uprooting her home of 40+ years and moving into her very first apartment ever was traumatic and emotional. The professionalism, efficiency, speed, timeliness, and kept-​promises of A First Class Move meant I had a partner I could rely on, while making the process as easy as possible for my mom.
Prices and rates were described thoroughly to me, schedules were adhered to without fail, crews showed up on time and completed work promptly — nothing was broken, everything was placed exactly as planned, Mother walked in the door of her new unit and found everything precisely where she and I expected it to be. There were no surprises. There were no hidden fees. Most especially, I never had the sense that our necessity, urgency, and emergency was being used to take advantage.
This was a major life change for my mom, and the entire AFCM team was very sensitive to that: they aren’t just movers, they are life-​transition experts. They know that while a room might look like it’s packed full of old furniture, papers, and photos, every single item has a history, a charged emotional content, and a special meaning that needs to be respected. I should also add that every time we opened another closet, or another cabinet, or another trunk, all of us realized that we were not dealing with one household, but the contents of four: my mother had become the family depository of her parents’ home, my father’s parents’ home, and the complete households of two maiden aunts.
All in all, we had the contents of four households to pack, store, ship, dispose of, donate, or remove that fall. It was a project like none I’ve been involved with. Facing my strict deadline of turning the house, prepped for sale, over to our Realtor for a Halloween Open House, AFCM worked late into the nights to pack and mark every item, every box, every rug, every piece of furniture, every artwork, every antique and precious family heirloom, every box of china/​glassware/​crystal and every tschotske. Everything reached its destination — and there were four — intact, completely without damage or breakage, on time and on budget.
You aren’t only hiring movers with AFCM — you’re hiring family counselors, geriatricians, expert antique and heirloom handlers, and hard-​working packers, lifters, shippers, and movers. No decision was too small to bounce off the team, no agonizingly difficult appraisal was too small to rely on them, no piano was too large to get moved and stored without damage.
Finally, AFCM independently (after I’d returned home to Portland) prepped the house for sale. As you can imagine, it needed lots of work to be made ‘neutral’ as buyers today expect: it had been personalized with wallpaper and specially-​blended paints over the years to meet our family’s taste levels. Buyers nowadays want a blank canvas, and it took great effort to achieve that. The house fetched 98% of our asking price within 13 days of the first open house.
You know what? This service is not cheap. But it is worth every single penny. I wouldn’t have been able to manage this process — partly long-​distance from the American West Coast, while coordinating with a sibling in Canada and a cousin at Virginia Beach — without the expertise, time management, materials, volume and storage estimating skills, and patience of A First Class Move.

I hired AFCM to move my 3 bedroom into a 2 bedroom about an hour away. It went really smooth. The owner was really nice and did everything they could to take care of me. I would recommend this company to anyone who want the first class treatment. It just made my life so much easier.
Thank you.

My elderly parents hired A First Class Move (AFCM) to move from a medium-​size two-​bedroom condo in Alexandria to a small two-​bedroom apartment in an assisted living community in Arlington. I thought the price was VERY high… even if their services had been rendered well, which they were not. We would never hire them again. It was far from the «stress-​free» move that they promise.
SUMMARY:
— Price was very high.
— They showed up late and finished many hours later (even factoring starting late).
— The move manager never took measurements at the new place.
— The move manager didn’t show up at the old place on moving day.
— The family had to do the majority of unpacking and setting up of the new apartment.
— Furniture wouldn’t fit where planned because they did not have accurate measurements.
— Furniture was damaged. They showed no concern about it and never repaired it.
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DETAILS:
Prior to the move family did many hours of sorting and packing, and had already moved most of their most precious possessions (china, crystal, jewelry, etc.). On moving day we were led to expect the movers to complete the packing and loading of the truck in three hours. It took six.
We were told that the three movers planned to depart by noon and to arrive at the new place at 12:30. Everything would be inside in another hour or so. By late afternoon everything would be put away, beds made, pictures hung on the walls, etc. Understanding that these things don’t always go according to plan we had plenty of cushion in the timeline and planned to bring our parents over to their new home — 100% ready to be lived in — around 6:30pm. Almost all of the smaller items had been moved to the dining room so we could expedite the process and say «everything in this room gets moved.» All of the kitchen items were packed, moved and put away by me and my siblings (food, utensils, pots and pans, etc.).
Our plan was that two of us would take time off work to assist with last-​minute packing and unpacking. Another sibling would take our sick mother to her place in Arlington for the day to rest and to limit the emotional trauma of the move. Our father would join her when the moving truck left. The plan that he was sold was that they would be able to show up to their fully decorated new home early that evening.
The loaded truck was to arrive around 12:30pm, and everything would be inside in another hour. By late afternoon everything would be unpacked and put away, beds made, pictures on the walls, etc. Understanding that things don’t always go according to plan we built in plenty of cushion in the timeline and planned to bring our parents over to their new, 100%-ready-to-be-lived-in home around 6:30pm.
What actually happened was that the movers came late and the move manager did not even come to the condo on moving day to supervise packing. She said later that she had never even been to the new apartment. She based her plan for where furniture would go on floor plans. She was to take photos of the precise arrangement of personal photos, notes and other items on kitchen cabinets and walls. This never happened. We took our own photos on moving day, moved them and put them up in the new place. My sister and I packed all morning while the movers carried things out. Around 12:30pm I asked them to let me know how long it would be until they would be done loading because we wanted to leave 30 minutes before them in order to run an errand and still be at the new apartment when they arrives. I was told «one more hour» (meaning 1:30) by the leader, so 30 minutes later my sister and I left. The movers finally left around 3:30pm and arrived at 4pm, three hours behind schedule.
Because measurements were not taken, furniture would not fit in the bedrooms where they were supposed to go. In an effort to force them the movers scratched up a desk/​armoire, the sofa, and the freshly painted hallway. Because furniture would not fit our parents had to switch rooms — a problem because Mom needed the room with more closet space, and that room is is further from the front door. She has sensitive hearing and their unit’s location is across from the elevator.
We worked worked all day and into the night packing, moving, unpacking and getting things set in the apartment. We were rushing to finish when our parents arrived at 10:30pm. The ONLY reason that they were even able to come at that point is because of the work WE did. There is no possibility that their new apartment would have been ready that day if not for our efforts.
At the end the move manager wanted a check for the full balance, making no mention of the damaged furniture that was pointed out to her hours earlier.
Dealing with ‘A First Class Move’ was an awful experience for our family.
EDIT: We found out afterward that our elderly father had signed a contract that said they were not responsible for damaged furniture… so they never paid for it. Wow.