When people hear “whichever brother quotes your move is the brother who runs it,” they usually assume it’s a marketing line. It isn’t — it’s literally how every job gets scheduled at 2 Brothers Moving Services, and it’s the whole reason the company exists. Owen and Gavin Larkin spent five years driving for two different national van lines, both of them walking into a customer’s home, writing up an estimate, and then watching dispatch hand the actual job to a crew that had never seen the house or read the notes. They quit the same month in 2012 and built the opposite company on purpose.
What Happens During the Estimate Visit
For anything bigger than a studio or small apartment, Owen or Gavin walks the property in person before you get a number in writing. That visit isn’t a sales pitch — it’s the document everything downstream gets built from. During a typical walkthrough, they’re noting:
- What’s actually in each room, not just a bedroom count, so the crew size and truck match reality
- Stairs, tight hallways, and anything that changes how furniture has to come apart and go back together
- Parking and access at both the pickup and drop-off — a Kirkland street with no shoulder gets handled differently than a Woodinville driveway
- Anything fragile or awkward: a piano, a gun safe, a wall of glass-front cabinets
- Your actual move date and any hard deadlines, like a lease closing or a school start date
That estimate visit ends with a name attached to the job file — Owen’s or Gavin’s — and that’s the name that shows up on your truck.
Who Actually Runs the Truck
The rule scales with the size of the job rather than applying the same way to every booking:
| Job Size | Who Quotes It | Who Runs It |
|---|---|---|
| Full-household local or long-distance move | Owen or Gavin, in person | Same brother, on site for the whole job |
| Smaller apartment or studio move | Crew chief Marcus Villanueva or Sadie Kowalski, often over video | Same crew chief, from first box to last |
Either way, the person who priced your move is the person accountable for it on move day — not a name on a confirmation email who’s never seen your street.
What Happens When a Brother Is Out
Naomi Castellano runs dispatch, and part of her job is making sure this promise doesn’t quietly break the one week someone’s sick or two jobs land on the same day. The estimate notes from every walkthrough live in one job file, not in someone’s head, so if Owen’s out and Gavin has to step onto a job Owen originally quoted, he’s reading the same access notes and inventory list Owen wrote down, not guessing. When that swap happens, Naomi has whichever brother is covering call the customer directly beforehand, so you hear it from us before the truck shows up with a different face on it. It’s not the default plan — the schedule is built to avoid it — but it does happen, and we’d rather you know the process than assume it never comes up.
We didn’t quit two van-line jobs to build a company that still hands your move off to a stranger with a clipboard. If my name’s on your estimate, I’m the one who knows what’s actually in your garage.
— Owen Larkin, Owner
If you want to see how this actually plays out for your own move, call (425) 318-6642 and Naomi will get either Owen or Gavin — or Marcus or Sadie, depending on the size of the job — out to walk your place in person.