How To Pack Dishes and Glasses

How To Pack Dishes and Glasses for Moving in One Guide

Packing dishes and glasses before moving house is half of the packing process and many people prefer to do it themselves. If you do it properly, you will not worry about broken expensive plates and glasses during loading or transportation.

In this thorough guide, St Albans Removals explains how to take care of the different types of dishes and glasses by packing them with great care and with the proper materials for the job. Your ceramic plates, stemware, mugs, and glasses will be well protected if you follow the professional packing tips below:

How to pack plates for moving

This simple technique always works and is the most basic method for wrapping a plate with paper. It’s also super easy and comprehensive:

• Use a flat and solid work surface on which you’ll do the packing.
• Cover it with packing paper or newspapers.
  Get papers wide enough for the plate you’ll be packing. The size is good when there aren’t any parts of the plates left exposed.
• Put the plate at the centre of the paper sheet and gently fold one of the corners until you cover the whole plate.
• Then, place another plate on top and cover it with one of the remaining edges.
  Do this 4 times until the whole sheet is used to its full potential and all four plates are fully wrapped with the paper.

Best way to pack dishes for long long-distance move

The core principles of successfully packing dishes for a long-distance move have already been described earlier in the post, where we explained how to pack plates in a dish barrel.

A common mistake we see during large-scale moves at longer distances is that some families decide to cut costs on moving boxes. Instead of buying and properly packing a dish barrel with all their plates and glassware, they try to find cheaper, used boxes.

It’s easy to find free moving boxes; however, we do not recommend you do this for a long-distance move. Used moving boxes are often scruffy and worn out to an extent that they may pose a threat to your items. If the bottom fails, you’ll end up with plenty of dishes or glassware broken into tiny pieces. Most certainly, you won’t be able to restore them afterwards and will have to throw them away.

How to pack dishes without a newspaper

If you don’t want to use a newspaper when packing the dishes or any paper at all, that’s fine. Simply look forward to other packing materials such as bubble wrap, which will similarly do the job. There are other alternatives as well, such as:

• Towels
  You can use any towel as long as it fits inside the box, but still leaves enough space for the dishes.
• Packing tape
  Use it for wrapping the dishes with it. It will be a lot harder to remove it than the newspaper, but it is a simple solution if you don’t have any alternative at the moment.
• Clothing
  Underwear and socks are the ultimate replacement for towels. You can use small clothes to fill the gaps in the moving box so the glasses don’t collide inside the cardboard container during transportation and lifting.

How to pack glasses for moving

• Start with an inspection
  Carefully take a look at each piece of glassware before packing it. You can lay down all the glasses you want to pack on a flat surface like a table or a larger bed. Go individually through each glass and take a closer look at any cracks or visible damage on the glass. Put away anything that looks suspicious, as it may cause a lot of issues during the move if it breaks inside.
• Sort valuable stuff
  Anything too expensive should go into a separate moving box. The rest of the glassware, as well as other items such as vases, can be stacked inside the primary box with the glassware.
  Take extra care of the most expensive glassware and better transport it to the new address with your vehicle for maximum safety.
• Wrap the glasses and seal the moving boxes on a flat surface.
  Any imperfections due to a lack of comfort during the process may result in broken glassware. Wrap each glass individually with packing paper.
• Find the most secure way to place the glasses inside the moving boxes, leaving only minimal amounts of free space.
• Fill the free space with packing paper.
• Seal the box perfectly with duct tape after finishing the top layer with bubble wrap.
• Label each box as “fragile”.