Start with the vehicle, because in Beverly Hills that is a regulated question. The city restricts vehicles exceeding 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight, or wider than 8 feet 6 inches, to streets designated for heavy vehicle usage, and requires a vehicle that must deviate from those streets to take the shortest possible route over prohibited streets to reach its destination. On top of that, a motor court built for cars will not turn a long wheelbase, and a gate column set at 9 feet does not care what the load is. We size the truck to the drive and shuttle where the drive wins.
Then the door. Large houses here almost always have a second way in — a service entrance, a kitchen court, a staff stair — and using it is usually faster and always less disruptive than the front hall. It also tends to be narrower, with a tighter turn at the bottom of the stair, so the measurement that matters is the smallest clear opening on the route, not the widest. Oversized upholstery frequently has to be dismantled: legs off, back off a two-piece frame, a sofa bed's mechanism unbolted. We would rather take twenty minutes with a wrench than force a piece past a door casing.
Protection is not optional on these floors. Stone, wide-plank hardwood, inlaid entry tile, stair runners and plaster corners all get covered or padded before the first item moves, and the crew carries rather than drags. On a job where a piece is going down an exterior stair, the handrail and the landing get protected too.
Multi-family in the flats and the southern blocks has its own list. A newer condominium will have a service elevator that must be booked and padded, a designated loading door, and a management office that wants a certificate of insurance on file before any crew enters — all of which is routine and all of which is far easier the day before than in the lobby on the day. Street-side, the city's overnight parking prohibition from 2:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. has been in force since 1927, and the city states that one-day preferential parking permits do not exempt a vehicle from street cleaning, posted no-parking areas, meters or alleys. Nothing about that stops a daytime job; it does mean a truck cannot simply be left on the block, so we plan an arrival, a load and a departure rather than a presence.
Finally, the awkward category. Beds arrive with mattresses, media walls arrive with televisions inside them, and a powered recliner has a motor and a transformer in it. Those do not travel as furniture and are handled separately, which is covered below. If the furniture is going as part of a whole-property clearance, see estate cleanouts in Beverly Hills.