As you pack your items for a move, you should give special attention to your softer items such as pillows, linens, and blankets. These items can be easily damaged or dirtied, so they must be packed with special care. Below, you will find five special care tips for packing your linens and other soft goods.
1. Give Them A Wash
When it comes time to pack soft items such as blankets, linens, and pillows, you should always start by giving them a cleansing wash through the washing machine. This will remove any dirt or allergens from your current home that have gathered within your soft items so that you don’t track them to your new home. When washing your pillows, it’s important that the pillows are completely dry before you pack them away. Pillows can soak up quite a bit of water during a wash cycle, so they sometimes require more than one dry cycle.
2. Fold For Neatness
Packing your soft items for moving without folding them first can cause them to become wrinkled or knotted together. Wrinkled sheets and blankets are a very unattractive sight and usually require another cycle through the washer and dryer to fully remove all wrinkles. While wrinkles are annoying, knotted linens and blankets can result in stretching or permanent damage to your soft items. All of these scenarios are unappealing. To avoid this mess, neatly fold your blankets, linens, and other soft items before getting them ready to be packed.
3. Sort By Type
How well you organize your items during a move is going to play a key role in how smoothly your move will go. This is especially true for your linens, blankets, and other soft household items. You don’t want to pack them with harder, heavier items because they will get smashed, wrinkled, or torn. Separate your soft items from the other items in your household. Once all of the soft items are together, separate them by room or type so that unpacking your soft items at your new home will be simple.
4. Protect Before Packing
Once you have your soft household items separated by type or room, don’t pack them into containers just yet. There are untold amounts of dirt, dust, and water to be found in the back of commercial moving trucks or other vehicles. You don’t want to place your freshly washed and folded linens or blankets in the back of a vehicle just to have them become dirty again. Before you pack your soft items, place them inside of protective plastic bags. Garbage bags, vacuum bags, and storage bags are perfect for this type of job and are versatile enough to accommodate most soft household items.
5. Choose The Container
Choosing the best container for your soft household items is an important decision. You want to choose a container that will provide sturdy protection for the move but will also provide moisture protection if you move on a rainy day. Cardboard boxes are perfect for a move during a dry day. For a move during a rainy day, plastic totes with a closing lid would be ideal containers.
When stacking your moving containers in your vehicle or moving truck, remember to stack heavier containers on the bottom to provide support and to prevent them from crushing lighter boxes.