The time has finally come for former President Donald J. Trump to find a permanent space at Mar-a-Lago for his $50,000 room-size golf simulator, not to mention the 60-inch television he proudly displayed above the dining room table, his collection of Brioni suits and the first lady’s matching Louis Vuitton luggage she has hauled around the globe.

By Wednesday at 12:01 p.m., all the first family’s stuff will have followed him out the White House door, en route to his new home in Palm Beach, Fla. And by the end of the day Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, will arrive to a deep-cleaned living quarters where their bags will be unpacked, their furniture arranged and their favorite foods stocked in the fridge.

It’s the awkward pas de deux performed every four or eight years when one family moves in and another moves out, an undertaking carried out by the 90-person White House residence staff in about five hours. A complicated, highly choreographed process is done on a tight schedule that often requires boxing up whatever has been left unpacked — some outgoing presidents are more prepared to leave the executive mansion than others.

This year, people involved in the process said, moving day also involves additional cleaning and safety precautions because of the coronavirus.

“The staff is sleeping on cots, in stairwells,” said Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff to the first lady Laura Bush, including during the 2009 handoff to the Obamas. No matter how prepared they are, she said, “it’s always chaotic.”

It’s all part of a White House ritual that Mr. Trump hasn’t completely disrupted. But as with everything else in politics and in life, this year will be more difficult than most.

— Annie Karni The New York Times