If you’re packing your belongings for a move, you should take extra care with delicate items like artwork. The right packaging can prevent damage from crushing, jostling, or rubbing and ensure your keepsakes reach your destination in perfect condition. Your moving service usually offers quality packaging for fragile items, but if you’re wrapping them up yourself, follow these steps.

How Can You Prepare Your Artwork for Moving?

1. Wrap

Items like paintings and photographs often have delicate surfaces that can be marked by rubbing against the inside of a box. Sculptures may have small parts that can break off under pressure. For this reason, always wrap artwork individually before placing it in a box. Run tape from corner to corner of the glass in a frame to keep any broken glass from scattering and cutting the art. Put a few layers of plastic wrap over the surfaces of paintings and photos to keep anything from rubbing against them. Place cardboard corner guards on paintings and frames, and wrap something soft like plastic wrap or tissues generously around sculptures.

2. Box

To protect a piece of art inside a box, you need to make sure it fits snugly so it won’t jostle around inside. Put a layer of bubble wrap or crumpled paper at the bottom of the box, then place your items in with generous layers of packing material in between, and then fill any empty space with more packing material. Gently move the box to see if you can hear anything rattle inside. If so, keep rearranging items and adding packing material until everything fits and doesn’t move. It helps to choose boxes that are close to the size of the artwork, so there’s not much leftover space to fill. When you’ve filled up your box, tape it securely, using extra rows of tape to make sure it stays closed.

3. Label

Your moving service should take extra care with delicate items, and should not set other boxes on top of them. To make sure they can do this, clearly label each box containing artwork so your movers will know to handle it with care. Write “fragile” and “artwork” on multiple sides, and indicate which side is the top so sculptures and figurines can rest on their bases instead of being left on their sides or upside down.

If you need a moving service to handle your delicate artwork with care, choose Easy Moving & Freight. Based in Union, KY, they handle both local Boone County relocation and long-distance moving and serve residential and commercial clients. They offer both affordable packing services and packing supplies so you can box up your belongings yourself. To get started, call (859) 393-1413 or visit their website.