What you need to pack plates for a move

Before we move on to listing the steps to packing the fragile items in your kitchen, let’s say a few words about the supplies which you must have in order to avoid finding any pieces of broken kitchenware upon arrival in your new home.

Reinforced cardboard boxes. If you follow closely the following tips for packing dishes when moving house, then you may as well use standard cardboard boxes to house them. However, it’s best if you play it safe and bet on special boxes made of double layers of corrugated cardboard to better protect their highly fragile content. Also known as dish boxes (or sometimes even dish packs), these specialized containers with thicker walls are ideal for serving your immediate agenda – packing dishes safely so that they don’t break during transport.

Bubble wrap. Okay, one thing is clear – you’re going to need a lot of bubble wrap simply because the famous bubbly protective material is your best friend when it comes to packing plates in boxes. The simple truth is that if you can afford enough bubble wrap, the chances are you won’t get to even see a single crack on your kitchen breakables.

Packing paper and newspaper. If you want to know how to pack plates with newspaper, then the first thing you need to be aware of is that newsprint can easily leave ink stains on your valuable kitchen plates. Those ink marks are not only hard to remove, but they could also completely ruin a kitchenware piece, and consequently – a set. Remember: wrap in clean and soft packing paper first and then wrap in newspaper for extra protection.

How to pack dishes for moving

Follow the detailed steps below to learn how to pack dishes safely regardless of the distance your breakables will travel – be it just a few miles across town or a few thousand miles to a place in a far and unknown part of the country.

Step 1: Reinforce with packing tape the bottoms of all the boxes you’re about to use for packing your dishes for moving. Also, strengthen the sides of the containers just to stay on the safe side and avoid any heartbreaking instances of box breakage under the weight of the packed china plates.

Step 2: The second step to packing dishes for a long distance move, or for a short relocation journey for that matter, is to pad the insides of the moving boxes with crumpled packing paper or newspapers. The idea here is to create a thick insulation layer that will protect the most fragile areas of moving boxes full of kitchen breakables – their bottoms. Skipping this preparation step could seriously endanger the safety of the entire packing operation. Besides paper, you can also use sheets of bubble wrap or a bath towel as bottom protection.

How to pack dishes for moving?

Step 3: Have the stack of soft packing paper ready in the spot you have designated as your packing station (most often and preferably, your kitchen table, of course).

Step 4: Place a fragile kitchen piece onto the center of the stack and cover it by pulling a few sheets over the breakable plate. Working diagonally from one corner onto the next one, wrap the piece completely by ticking in the paper ends in the very center of the plate and taping the bundle if necessary.

Step 5: If you deem it necessary, you can thoughtfully wrap the ready bundles in a single additional sheet of bubble wrap to guarantee that no kitchen plate will be found broken when the unpacking process in your new home gets under way. However, if you decide there’s no real need to go that far, you should take advantage of that extra protection for your more expensive and valuable sets of kitchen plates.

Step 6: Place the wrapped up plates into the boxes one by one. The proper technique for arranging your kitchen breakables is to lay them inside the moving containers standing on their edges and never flat. Another dish packing tip to keep in mind is that heavier plates should always go to the box bottom while the lighter fragile kitchenware goes on top of them.

Step 7: Each arranged row of kitchen plates should be protected from the next one with the help of adequate insulators – paper, bubble wrap, towels, or any other piece of clothing for that matter.

Step 8: Fill in any remaining places inside the boxes to immobilize the entire package. Needless to say, the main idea here is no part of any piece to be touching another during the numerous handling instances of the dish boxes that are about to come.

Step 9: When you’re done arranging the kitchen breakable in a cardboard box, place one final protective layer of paper or bubble wrap, close the lid shut and tape it in place.

Step 10: Here comes the final step of packing dishes when moving which most people tend to overlook – labeling the moving box. Take a black (or red) marker pen and write KITCHEN PLATES, HANDLE WITH CARE, and FRAGILE on at least 3 sides of each container.
Extra tips for packing dishes

There’s nothing like finding some of your favorite sets of kitchen plates ruined after opening the moving boxes to start the unpacking process. To avoid this unpleasant experience, here are a number of additional tips for packing plates when moving house:

To save valuable time and money at the same time, inspect all of the china plates you’re about to pack away and see if there are pieces that are just not worth the effort. For example, it won’t make sense to pay for the transportation of rather inexpensive sets of kitchenware that are already cracked, chipped or already ruined in some other way. Remember that each added pound to the overall weight of your shipment will increase, be it by little, the final relocation bill.

You are definitely not advised to make a dish box too heavy unless you’re eager to experience a moving day accident on a smaller scale. Keep the boxes filled in with fragile kitchen plates below 40 lbs. to keep your residential move accident-free.

If you end up being the person to carry the dish boxes to the moving and maybe even loading the kitchen fragile items into the truck itself, you need to be extremely careful when handling the cardboard boxes to avoid untimely troubles.

Packing breakable dishes is anything but a joke. If you feel like this tough task is more than you can handle, or if you’re desperately running short on time, then it’s best if you get in touch with experienced packers to give you the professional touch you need.