
Highlights
- Leaving antique furniture behind when moving to another place will most likely be a big mistake.
- Moving antique furniture is more challenging due to the extra value and fragility of the pieces.
- This antique furniture guide will show you the best way to protect and move your valuable items so that they arrive in the new home perfectly intact.
- Highlights
- How to prepare your antique furniture for moving
- Step 1. Inventory your antique furniture
- Step 2. Moving antique furniture vs selling furniture for cash
- Step 3. Get your antique furniture appraised
- Step 4. Purchase proper insurance coverage
- Step 5. Take a closer look at your furniture
- Antique furniture moving companies
- Why trust professional antique furniture movers?
- The best antique furniture moving companies
- How to pack antique furniture by yourself
- Pre-packing antique furniture preparation
- How to wrap and protect wood furniture when you move
- How to move antique furniture by yourself
- 1. Extra care
- 2. Friendly help
- 3. Safety
- 4. Coordination
- 5. Lifting techniques
- 6. Moving equipment
- 7. Appropriate clothes and shoes
- 8. Floor protection
- 9. Antique furniture disassembly
- 10. Loading into the truck
- 11. Antique furniture storage
- After the move: What to do with your antique furniture
- 1. Antique furniture care and preservation
- 2. How to clean antique furniture
- 3. How to restore antique furniture
Do you like riddles?
If you do, here’s a fairly challenging riddle for you:
What has served you stoically in your home in both favorable and unfavorable climatic conditions without a single complaint? And what has watched over your private life silently, only giving you sporadic invaluable pieces of advice in the form of occasional creaking sounds?
And before you are too quick to guess it all wrong, just search your feelings to find the right answer.
Could the correct answer be perhaps… the furniture you own?
The truth is that you may have never thought of your pieces of furniture as your friends, but that’s exactly what they are. Good friends at that, especially any antique furniture pieces you own.
And one thing is clear – regardless of how you view the furniture objects around you, you surely don’t want to see any of them broken or damaged beyond repair during a highly transitional period in your life, like a house move.
Interestingly, while moving to another home was probably not what you wished for the last time you blew out the candles on the birthday cake, residential relocation may be exactly the thing that’s on your mind right now.
It’s great that you’ve found this antique furniture guide, for in it you will learn:
- why fragile and expensive is a tricky combination to have during a house move;
- what steps to take to best protect your antique furniture before, during, and after a house move;
- why moving companies specializing in antiques are your safest bet to transport your valuable pieces without any accidents along the road;
- how to pack antiques for moving the right way so that they arrive in your new home exactly the way they left your old residence;
- under what circumstances it’s okay to move antique furniture by yourself, and more importantly – how to move antique furniture on your own;
- how to care for and preserve your antique wooden furniture after the relocation is over.
Above all, you will read expert tips for moving antique furniture by professional antique furniture movers, experienced antique dealers, and skilled antique furniture restorers.
So, how to move antique furniture to another home?
Read on to find out.
How to prepare your antique furniture for moving
Moving antique furniture cross country is a specialized moving job that is difficult to compare to relocating any other type of household goods.
In some ways, it resembles the professional expertise and specialist equipment needed for relocating highly specialized objects such as pianos, pool tables, and wine collections.
The major problem with moving such uniquely categorized items is the increased risks of damage during the move itself – costly and upsetting damage that can sharply diminish their value even though that harm can sometimes be repaired and their condition restored to their former self.
It goes without saying that your prized antique furniture requires a delicate touch and ultimate protection throughout the moving process.
Sam Williamson from Fife Man Removals (a UK-based moving company) stresses the importance of the preparation period when moving antiques across the country.
“Unfortunately, it’s notoriously difficult to prepare antiques for a move, as they tend to require much more preparation than normal household items. Any item that is being moved to another home should be treated with the utmost care, but this is especially true for antiques. Most household items can be easily replaced if they are broken or damaged during a move, but often no amount of money can replace the sentimental value that antiques hold. For this reason, it’s crucial that every effort is made to ensure their safety during a move.”
And knowing that moving antique wooden furniture is something totally different than shipping your book collection, for example, here’s what you need to do before moving antique furniture across the country:
Step 1. Inventory your antique furniture

As an antique furniture owner who’s facing an imminent house move, the very first thing you need to do is to complete a detailed inventory of all the antique furniture pieces you have in your home.
In addition to that, you are also recommended to inventory all your non-antique furniture that will require special packing and handling for various reasons like sentimental value, fragility, aesthetic appeal, etc.
As you go from room to room, do note down any existing damage on each furniture piece as such defects can easily jeopardize the structural integrity of the old unit itself.
While making a detailed list of your antique objects, remember to take plenty of clear, high-resolution photographs of each furniture piece. Photograph these special possessions of yours from all sides and angles, concentrating on pre-existing defects, weakened sections, or extra fragile parts.
A video inventory made possible by a dedicated video camera, a still camera, or a smartphone is also a good option to document the pre-move condition of your antiques.
But why do you need photos of your antique furniture prior to Moving day?
Hannah Crouthamel from The Farm Antiques kindly explains,
“Photographs help, both for insurance and for your memory. If you can’t photograph each item, then photograph each room, so you have a memory jog of what you did actually have in what room. A few photos of each room will suffice. A proper moving company will have a total list of items that you are shipping, but if you are doing it yourself or have less than professional people moving (which I do not recommend), this will give you at least a starting point if claims are needed against a moving company.”
Step 2. Moving antique furniture vs selling furniture for cash
After you’re done inventorying your furniture, the next step is to actually decide whether all of the pieces you own are worth the expenses, time, energy, and genuine effort to relocate them to your new home.
Keep in mind that it can be extremely hard for you to make such an important decision under the circumstances as your valued antique furniture pieces are just that – valuable.
Our Used Furniture Guide will help you do what’s best for you and your antiques as it provides good advice on how to price your pieces, where to sell them, and most importantly – whether to part with them at all.
What to Do With Furniture When Moving: 7 Great Options
And yet, refer to the next step before you reach your final decision.
Step 3. Get your antique furniture appraised
Now that Step 2 has given you BEFORE images of your antique furniture pieces (before they are packed safely, carried out of your home, and loaded into the moving vehicle), you will have indisputable evidence of their pre-move condition in case you need to file a damage claim later.
However, having proof that your antiques have been damaged during transport won’t do you any good unless you have proper insurance coverage. And before you can insure your valuable possessions, you will need to have your antique furniture pieces appraised.

Remember that it’s fundamental to know just how much your antique furniture is worth prior to Moving day. Antique furniture appraisals are the first step towards ensuring the safety of your objects of extraordinary monetary or sentimental value (high-value articles).
In some cases, you may need to obtain more than one appraisal as verification of the value of your antiques, especially if you own pieces that are considered priceless.
To find a perfectly qualified person for that job, you should ask your insurance agent/company, or trustworthy authorized antiques dealers about recommendations for licensed antique furniture appraisers in your area.
Also, you can contact the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) for assistance or use the search engine on their website to locate a person with the appraisal expertise you need.
For your information, the majority of appraisers charge either a flat fee or an hourly rate for their services, so you should ask in advance how you will be charged.
Step 4. Purchase proper insurance coverage
Without a doubt, Step 4 is considered to be the most important pre-move task you just have to do to protect your antique wooden furniture friends.
There are those people who prefer to “save” money by not purchasing proper insurance for their valuable antiques when the latter are being moved to another house or apartment.
However, be mindful that that risk is (almost) never worth taking. Even if the worst happens (yes, it’s been known to happen!), you will be able to recover the value of your expensive antiques.
With adequate coverage, you will be able to recover the value of your prized possessions if the unthinkable happens. The saying It’s better to be safe than sorry has never been truer than when moving antiques across the country.
So, contact your insurance agent and discuss the best insurance options for your antique objects while they are in transit.
Antiques expert Hannah Crouthamel gives another valuable piece of advice,
“If I had one thing to recommend above all others is to make sure your items are fully insured when in transit. Do not take what the movers typically want to sell you, which is insurance by the pound, which can net you close to zip on delicate tables and fine china. Talk to your insurance agent about options for insurance while in transit. Talk to your moving company and see if they have full insurance available and how much it will cost; compare it to what your insurance agent might be able to do for you. If you already have a fine arts policy, your items will PROBABLY, but not necessarily be covered in transit; check with your agent.”
Step 5. Take a closer look at your furniture

By now, you have covered 3 very important tasks of preparing your antiques for safe transportation – inventory, appraisal, and insurance.
The next preparation step is a bit different as it preludes the tough and time-consuming process of packing antique wood furniture.
The idea here is to take a closer look at each furniture unit to identify its move-related weaknesses, recognize the potential risks while it is being moved, and think of an appropriate way to protect and care for that antique furniture piece.
That initial survey should let you assess its construction /main frame, top section, legs or feet/ and its current condition /pre-existing damage like cracks, loose joints, and so on/.
5.1. Size does matter
Before the moving action starts, you need to be sure that your pieces of antique furniture will comfortably fit through the doors and doorframes of both your old and new home.
Even if you do the sensible thing and hire antique furniture movers /the recommended approach/, it’s still necessary that you measure the dimensions of your pieces and the dimensions of your doorways to ensure that the fragile antique furniture will be safely maneuvered through and around tight spots, and even down along tricky stairs.
5.2. Preliminary floor plan
Careful planning is important because it will enable you to control each step of the relocation process. To make the antique furniture relocation a step safer and faster, you can choose to create a floor plan for your new home.
By having a preliminary floor plan, you won’t have to be forced to move a piece more than once, which in turn will minimize the chances of accidents.
Additionally, by knowing the exact sizes and shapes of your valuable pieces, you will easily know where to arrange your antique furniture in a convenient, stylish, and most of all – safe way.
5.3. Temperature and humidity
Depending on the specific type of wood used in your antique wood furniture, temperature extremes, and excess moisture might ruin the delicate finishes of some of your pieces.
To avoid structural damage of any kind to your prized household items, the temperature and humidity levels at your new home should be roughly the same as the ones at your soon-to-be old residence.
To test your home’s humidity levels, purchase a hygrometer or an indoor humidity monitor.
In any case, if you’re moving to a place with much colder/warmer and wetter/dryer climatic conditions, seek advice from a licensed antique dealer or an antique furniture moving company about the best way to care for and preserve your really expensive possessions after the move is over and done with.
5.4. Identification of problematic spots
- Inspect your antique objects very closely with the purpose of identifying potential spots or sections that could prove to be rather problematic come Moving day.
- Look for any loose shelves, interior parts, and non-secured pieces made of glass (especially glass doors).
- Try to identify structural elements that have been weakened with time and need special attention during the packing process.
- Mark these extra fragile parts in the inventory sheet and remember to let the specialty movers know about them before the actual relocation takes place.
- Keep the communication channel with your moving company well open throughout the moving adventure – share with the pros any piece of information that you think can help them avoid running into any troubles.
Movers today are NOT professional–they just have to lift the furniture. I desperately want someone who understands and respects antiques to move us this time. We’ve had too many bad moves with our pieces we prize. Where can we find such a mover???
if you had to move a complete house of antique furniture can you give me a ball park figure im putting a estimate together for insurance purposes from hurricane Harvey
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