Boston’s top pack and ship service shares useful tips for packing furniture for shipping. Whether you’re packing your furniture for a local neighborhood move or are planning to ship your furniture cross-country, you’ll want to keep the following tips in mind:
Empty the drawers.
We know it seems super convenient to pack your dressers with the drawers full of clothing, but doing so makes each piece of furniture much heavier. It also increases the risk of your dresser being damaged while it’s in transit. And because goods inside of boxes, cabinets, drawers, etc can shift while in motion, your possessions risk being damaged, lost, or stained.
Cover & wrap.
Give your furniture a protective layer by covering it with moving blankets or bubble wrap, which is then held in place by packing tape or plastic wrap. Try to wrap everything as securely as possible. You want to eliminate any motion. Pay special attention to corners and legs – these are the most vulnerable points on many pieces of furniture.
It’s Time to Unassemble
Remember how much fun you had putting your IKEA furniture together? Now it’s time to go through that same process – but in reverse. There are many instances where disassembling furniture makes it much easier and more affordable to move. That being said, it’s a good best practice to take a picture of your furniture while it’s still together and make sure to keep track of all of the fasteners, hardware, and other pieces of your furniture.
Label EVERYTHING.
Remember all of those fasteners, hardware, and other furniture bits we were just talking about? For ease of reassembly, keep them together in a ziplock bag, clearly labeled with information about what piece of furniture they belong to. In much the same way, you’ll want to label pretty much everything you can during your household move: while you may think you know what that black cable goes to, when you’re in the middle of unpacking everything in your new place, it might not be so clear.