Moving is emotionally difficult for most, but it’s particularly difficult when during the process your belongings get damaged. It doesn’t even have to be great damage, like a broken chair leg, even the smallest nicks and scratches or rips can be annoying to deal with. The worst is if you hire a mover to do the job for you, and they don’t tell you about the damage so you stumble across it a month later. There comes a point where damage is inevitable because staircases or narrow doors, but there are ways to bring it down to a minimum.

Large Furniture: Most large bulky furniture, such as your dining table set and sofa set, came into your home in tiny pieces or in ridiculously sturdy packing material, but it’s difficult to replicate that again because you’d end up having to pay a fortune for extra packing material. To pack large furniture start off with getting some help from your friends or hire a mover to disassemble as much as you can. Be sure to have little baggies with labels on them to put all the little screws and nails. Next, try to wrap the pieces in cardboard or put them in actual cardboard boxes if they fit. Now you can’t exactly shove a sofa in a box, so you need to invest in shrink wrap! This is the fun part. Just go nuts with shrink wrapping it in every direction, and keep it in place with tape. It’s also a good idea to still use moving pads in the actual moving process.

Glass Items: Protecting those delicate wine glasses and flutes is the utmost priority – they’re so expensive! Wrap each glass individually with paper ensuring that you cover everything. Wrap it whole in a cylinder form and then place them in a divided box. A divided box can be easily made with a few pieces of flat cardboard and some scissors. Opt for no more than 12 cells in a box. If you don’t want to create the divided box, you should put clothing and bubble wrap in the box to cover the glasses and make sure there are no empty spaces for the glasses to move to. Finally, clearly mark the box with “FRAGILE GLASS” so it isn’t mishandled.

Fragile Items (plates, vases, decoration pieces, etc.): Now you may have other fragile items that aren’t necessarily made of glass but light ceramic materials or similar and they deserve the equal amount of care. Plates and vases should be wrapped in the same manner as glasses. However, when it comes to intricate ceiling light pieces you need to show a little more care. First off, you may want to look for handyman services Dubai to correctly remove and disconnect the light fixtures. Two reasons for that are (1) you don’t want to damage them and (2) you want to make sure the electrical wires in your old place are still working when you leave to avoid disputes with the landlord. Once the fixtures have been removed, take out the bulbs and wrap the fixture as best as you can. Also, carefully wrap the wire around the fixture itself if it can’t be removed.

Important Documents and Books: Moving books and papers seems pretty straightforward but to keep them in good condition you should follow some general rules. Firstly, clearly mark all the boxes to indicate what type of books or papers are inside. You may also want to consider labelling by location, for example “top shelf books in study” to make it easy to place everything back. Secondly, similar to the glasses boxes, place the books in a way so that there is no room for movement. For papers, try to put them in folders or wrap them in some left over shrink wrap so they’re not ruined or misplaced. Finally, a general rule when packing books and papers is to maintain a certain weight for each box so it doesn’t rip open half way to your new home.