How to pack plates and glasses for moving, step by step

How do you pack plates and glasses for a move?

You need packing paper or bubble wrap, sturdy boxes and something to fill the gaps. Wrap each plate and stand it on its edge, like a record. Wrap each glass on its own, with paper inside too. Fill every gap, close the box and write "fragile" on two sides.

The rest of this page is the same answer with more detail. The full guide, with boxes, labels, fragile items and what can go into storage, comes by email from the box below, right after the materials.

Materials first, plates second

If you start with the plate and find out halfway that the paper has run out, you have already chosen which plate to sacrifice. Get everything ready first: the kitchen is the one room that punishes improvisation.

Take sturdy cardboard boxes in a few sizes, small or medium: plates weigh more than they look, and a box full of crockery bursts its bottom with almost elegant calm. The 20 kg limit per box always applies, and with ceramics you get there sooner than you think.

You also need packing paper (newspaper leaves ink on the plates), bubble wrap for delicate pieces, wide tape, a permanent marker and scrunched paper for the gaps. Reinforce the bottom of the box with tape before filling it: it's the boring part, and the one that counts.

Wash and dry everything before wrapping it. A damp glass shut in a box for weeks becomes a separate problem from the move.

• Sturdy boxes, small or medium

• Packing paper and bubble wrap

• Wide tape, permanent marker

• Scrunched paper for the gaps

Steps 1 and 2: plates stand on their edge, like records

Lay a bed of scrunched paper on the bottom, thick enough that you can't feel the box when you set it down. Step one done, and no plate involved yet.

Wrap each plate on its own, with more than one turn of paper, and stand it on its edge, like the vinyl of someone who has moved more often than you. On its edge a plate takes weight better than lying flat, and a knock hits the rim, not the middle.

Step two is discipline: one plate, one sheet, one row. No stacks of five wrapped together, however much it's the fastest way to end the afternoon and the fastest way to buy a new set.

Put scrunched paper between the rows and another layer on the last one. Heavier plates go at the bottom and thin porcelain on top, never the other way round.

Step 3: wrap glasses one by one, inside and out

Glasses are plates with a worse temper: thin, tall and convinced they can travel in a group. They can't. Each one gets its own paper, and some goes inside too, because that's where thin walls touch.

Stemware needs bubble wrap on the stem and the rim, the two points that give first. If you have the cardboard dividers from moving kits, use them: each glass gets its own slot and never touches the next one.

Glasses stand upright or upside down, with the rim resting on paper and not on the bottom of the box. On top of the plates, never under, and the rattle is the giveaway: shake gently, and if you hear something, there's still a gap to fill.

Step 4: fill the gaps until the box stops rattling

Nothing should move inside the box. If a box rattles, the move is already doing its share of the work, and you aren't doing yours.

Fill the gaps with scrunched paper up to the rim, without crushing: the box should close without effort and without a belly. A half-empty box gets crushed when others are stacked on it, and what's inside goes with it.

Mugs, bowls and anything with a handle get wrapped like glasses, handle included, because the handle is what breaks first. Put them at the sides, with paper as a cushion.

Step 5: seal in an H, write "fragile" and lift with your legs

Seal with two strips of tape top and bottom, in an H, so the bottom doesn't open halfway up the stairs. It's the kind of tape that looks excessive until it's needed.

Write on two sides, not just the top: once boxes are stacked, nobody sees the lid. Add the number, the room, "kitchen" and FRAGILE with an arrow pointing up. If you're moving alone, the label is the only person who will remind you what's inside at midnight.

Weight matters more than the writing: for the plates box keep well under the maximum, which is already a one-person limit. Lift with your legs, and with the face of someone who did things right.

What if the kitchen has to wait in storage?

It happens when the new home isn't ready or you have to empty the old one first. Plates and glasses can go into storage: fragile items are allowed if well packed and flagged at pickup, and with the method above they are.

What changes is time. A box that stays shut for months must hide no surprises, so wash and dry everything and leave no food or liquids in the boxes: the list of what can't go into storage is in our guide to what not to pack.

If you'd like to see how the rest of the move fits together, there's the guide to organizing a move. For the rest of the boxes, how to pack your boxes covers the part that isn't only about the kitchen.

For the home that's still waiting, storage for your move in Milan collects the boxes from you, keeps them in the warehouse and brings them back when you ask.