Safely packing your dishware for moving and storage.

For hundreds of years some of the most cherished items in the family household have been also the most utilized. Dishware and silverware are some of the most important items of daily use in every home. Sometimes quite valuable and often presented as gifts on special occasions such as weddings these important heirlooms require special handling during moving and storage.

When preparing to store utensils and silverware it is important that each item is carefully cleaned and in the case of valuable silverware, they should each be polished with a solution designed for that purpose. To avoid scuffs and dings utensils should not be stacked or bound together tightly without some material in between each item in the next. Many people find that wrapping each utensil in one poll of the cloth napkin before stacking rolling and wrapping the next piece can allow five or six pieces of silverware to be wrapped together securely and safely. These small bundles can be secured with an elastic band but this is usually not necessary if you have numerous bundles pressed against each other in a small box. Historically this box will be wooden to secure against damage from accidental impact during moving.

China and dishware should be wrapped together in small bundles of matching size plates and bowls. For the best protection wrap each plate in one sheet of newspaper or packing paper then secure these plates in bundles of two or three takes securely together to avoid shifting. Place should then be boxed on edge, not flat. It is best that this is a wooden box again, to avoid impact damage during moving. However when the boxes of such size and weight are generally no longer used in moving or storage so make sure your vertically stacked plates are surrounded on all sides by dense packing material such as old clothes, towels or moving blankets. Crushed newspaper or packing peanuts are not suggested as packing. For China or dishware as overtime they tend to settle and lose their protective abilities. Make sure that the box containing your china and dishware is packed snugly so as none of the items inside will shift or move during transport.

Glassware and crystal are especially delicate and therefore require special handling. Never nest glasses or cups inside each other as this can cause breakage from very simple shifts in weight during transportation. Instead wrap each glass individually in newsprint or packing paper be sure to pass over the outer surfaces of the glass at least twice when wrapping. Stemmed glassware and crystal should be placed in the box upright, in the position they would be found standing on the dinner table. As you might expect this will require a large number of boxes to properly protect your glassware and some of the more valuable or fragile items need to be double boxed. This means that the glassware is wrapped as described above, boxed as described above and then back box placed in a larger box filled with packing material. This “double wall” protection provides the greatest security short of a solid wooden box.