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Moving your most prized possessions when relocating to a new property can be a delicate situation to handle. This is particularly true if you have precious paintings to transport. However, with a little thought and planning, moving your favourite pieces of artwork doesn’t need to be stressful. These are our top tips for how to move paintings, and ensure they stay in the best condition:

Wear Gloves & Minimise Contact 

First things first, you want to minimise your contact with the paintings as much as possible. So, before you start packing, we’d recommend clearing a clean space where you can wrap and box your paintings without any clutter getting in the way. You may also want to wear gloves to ensure that you don’t get any fingerprints on the artwork.

Wrap In Brown Parchment Paper & Bubble Wrap

The most important part of how to move paintings is ensuring you provide them with enough padding and cushioning to make it from A to B unscathed. For this, start by wrapping the painting in brown parchment paper as a base layer - avoid using newspaper as the ink can leave marks. Next, wrap the painting in plenty of bubble wrap, building layers both length-ways and width-ways. 

Mark Glass Topped Paintings 

If any of your paintings are topped with glass then you’ll need to take a little extra care. A top tip for how to move paintings that are finished with glass is to mark the glass with an X using making tape. Masking tape will be easy to peel off without leaving a mark,  and will ensure you know to take extra care as you’re unpacking these ones. Marking an X from the edges of the painting will also help to prevent the glass from moving about.

Use Cardboard Corners 

Protecting the front and back of your favourite painting is one thing, however you also want to ensure that the corners are protected from bumps and scrapes. To help you transport paintings even more securely, you can buy cardboard corner protectors to place on top of the bubble wrap. Alternatively, you can make them yourself using leftover cardboard.

Place Them Into Boxes 

A key part of how to move paintings is choosing the right box. You can buy artwork boxes that are designed specifically to suit the size of different pieces of art. It’s worth spending time measuring your paintings carefully to ensure you are using the perfect sized box - If the box is too big, the painting will move around which could increase the risk of damage (remember to take into account a couple of centimetres extra for bubble wrap).

Do A Test

Once you’ve boxed up your pieces of art, it’s a good idea to check that they won’t move about at all when in transit. The easiest way to do this is to pick the box up and shake it gently. If the contents are moving around a lot then you’ll need to use a smaller box or increase the padding with bubble wrap. 

Seal & Label 

Once everything is boxed up, the final tip for how to move paintings when moving house is to seal the boxes and label them. Labelling them will make life a whole lot easier when you come to unpack in your new home. You can also mark them as ‘fragile’ to ensure extra care is taken when they’re being transported. 

How Hackworthy Can Help

Our skilled packing team at Hackworthy removals have a wide range of experience packing specialist and fragile goods for home and business removals. If you would like assistance with moving your artwork, our team is on hand to help. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to find out how our removals service can help.