One of the biggest things you might forget when preparing for a move is preparing large furniture items for your move. After all, you’re probably pretty preoccupied with packing up clothes and all of your other smaller items, and it might not even cross your mind to consider how to pack furniture for moving. After all, wouldn’t you just leave it to your moving crew to pick things up and move them?

Unfortunately, learning how to protect furniture from moving goes beyond just avoiding wall edges or parts of your home that might nick your furniture as it gets moved out. To keep furniture from tables to couches to dressers safe when moving, you need to learn how to wrap furniture for moving and how to prepare these items to get relocated.

Especially if you’re headed on a long-distance journey, having the right furniture protectors for moving and the right strategy to keep furniture safe for a move will make a big difference in keeping your furniture in its best condition.

So how do you prepare furniture for a move and keep it safe during its journey? Learn the best tips for how to pack furniture for moving in this article.

How to Protect Furniture When Moving?

Whether working with a professional full-service moving company or moving by yourself, your furniture shouldn’t just be thrown in a moving van with reckless abandon. Even the heaviest or most sturdy pieces of furniture need the care to make sure they arrive at your new home with knicks, tears, or any chunks were taken out.

So how do you take the proper precautions to make sure your furniture is kept safe during your move? With a couple of simple supplies and the right know-how, you’ll be able to prepare your furniture properly for moving and keep it safe across any distance.

Furniture Moving Supplies

When gathering packing supplies for your move, you should never forget the supplies you’ll need for wrapping and packing large pieces of furniture. Packing supplies go beyond that of just boxes, tape, and bubble wrap, after all!

The supplies you’ll need to safely wrap and protect large items like couches, tables, dressers, china cabinets, and more are going to be:

• Bubble wrap
• Sofa/mattress covers
• Plastic stretch wrap
• Large sealable plastic bags
• Cardboard sheets (new or DIY’d)

How to Pack Furniture for Moving?

Once you have your supplies ready to go, it’s time to start preparing your furniture for the packing process itself. This means it’s time to get cleaning!

Thoroughly dust items like cabinets, tables, chairs, dressers, nightstands, bookshelves – anywhere dust might collect. Dust is not only gross and can give you a sneezing fit or sore throat during your move, but can easily scratch or damage hard surfaces during a move. Dusting before you move your furniture also means you’ll be bringing only clean furniture into your new home – aka no grime to take care of when fresh off the moving process! Make sure to also thoroughly wipe down any hard surfaces you might have.

For things like dressers, entertainment centers, nightstands, and more, you should also be mindful of any knobs, handles, casters, or pull-outs that your furniture might have. Remove drawers from dressers, desks, or living room storage to pack separately. This will make them both easier and lighter to move, but will also save these external appendages from possible damage or from falling out or being knocked off. Packing draws separately will also give you some extra storage space to secure smaller items.

You’ll also want to dismantle large, excessively heavy, or just plain awkward pieces of furniture before your move. We’re talking about things like bed frames, some bookcases, and entertainment centers with multiple parts. You should try to dismantle all of your furniture for a move, but we get that sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it. Make sure to dismantle the most important or large pieces of furniture, however.

Remove legs from tables and couches, and completely take bed frames apart. This will make everything easier to move and will save you from having to try to maneuver large furniture through tight hallways or staircases while trying to save everything from knicks and scratches. Dismantling furniture will also make things infinitely easier to pack and keep safe in your moving truck.

If you’re wondering how to dismantle certain pieces of furniture, consult their owner’s manual or see if you can find a video online as to how to take that specific piece apart. Use plastic bags to store things like screws and tape them to the furniture they’re used in to keep them safe and organized.

If something like a bed frame has a lot of different parts involved, try to mark the inside of pieces to remember what goes where for when you have to put everything back together, especially if you don’t still have the instructions.

When it comes to assembling and disassembling furniture, try to also do yourself a favor and invest in a drill to speed up your process and save you from having to spend endless hours securing a ton of small screws – but go easy with it to not strip anything down.

How to Wrap Furniture for Moving?

Knowing how to properly wrap furniture for moving is key to keeping your items free from tears, scratches, and even being broken.

To wrap furniture like tables or dressers, use bubble wrap and plastic sheeting to protect delicate wood pieces or things like legs or doors. Bubble wrap is also a good material to use to protect glass surfaces, like tables, doors, and mirrors. Try to also take special precautions like adding extra padding or taping down mirrors to save them from shattering during a move. You’ll be glad you did! For specifically glass items, try to also place them between two large sheets of cardboard to give them even more of a buffer.

How to Wrap a Couch for Moving?

To pack a couch for moving, you’ll need to first remove any cushions that might not be attached to your couch’s frame and put them in bags or wrap them in plastic to save them from possibly tearing or any staining that could happen.

Use plastic wrap or a specific couch or sofa cover to cover any upholstered surfaces on your couch, and layer the frame with blankets to keep it safe from anything in your moving truck.

Try to place it on top of cardboard sheets in your moving truck to keep it from getting scratched as well.

For the foundation of your couch, wrap the wooden feet or legs with plastic wrap as well to save them from breakage or scratching.

When it comes to placing fragile items or furniture into your moving truck, having a strategy in place will keep things a lot more safe and more organized than just throwing things wherever and hoping they’ll be okay.

Create a wall of boxes or plastic totes along the very back wall of your moving truck, and layer the bottom of this wall or perimeter with your heavy moving boxes before putting in any furniture. This will give you added stability and create a good barrier between more fragile things and the sides of your truck. You can also slide your (covered) mattress along the side for some conveniently added padding. Never layer any fragile items on top of unsecured furniture or items that might move around.

Need help moving furniture near you? Use Morse Moving & Storage for all of your complete packing, moving, and storage needs so you can have the best moving experience possible. Our well-priced moving packages and expert customer service staff will keep your move on track and provide you with the most efficient and professional moving service experience.