Every move reaches a point where the furniture is wrapped, the boxes are labeled, and what is left is a strange pile of things that do not fit anywhere: three table lamps, a hall mirror, a row of framed photos off the stairway wall, a clock, and two sconces still screwed into the plaster.
These are the odds and ends, and they cause more trouble than their size suggests. They are oddly shaped, mostly breakable, and there is no obvious box for any of them. They are also, almost always, the last thing anyone deals with.
Here is how to handle them properly, so the awkward pile is sorted before moving day rather than on it. Whether you are moving across Naples or out of the area entirely, these are the items worth doing carefully.
A lamp is three separate items
Almost nobody packs a lamp whole, and for good reason. A table lamp is really three things: the base, the shade, and the harp and bulb in the middle. Each one wants different treatment.
Take the bulb out first and set it aside. Bulbs are easy to replace and awkward to pack, and a bulb left in a lamp is a lamp that cannot be laid down. Then lift off the shade, which usually unscrews at a small finial on top. Underneath it you will find the harp, the thin metal loop that holds the shade up. Squeeze the harp at its base and it lifts out. Keep the harp and the finial together in a small bag, taped to the lamp base, because they are the two pieces that go missing and the two that are fiddly to replace.
The base itself packs like any other heavy, breakable object. Wrap it in packing paper or a moving blanket, pad the top and bottom, and stand it upright in a box with crumpled paper around it. Ceramic and glass bases want more padding than they look like they need. A pair of matching lamps can share a box if there is a solid divider of paper between them.
Floor lamps often unscrew into two or three sections at the pole. If yours does, take it apart, because a single long pole rolls around and gets stepped on. If it does not come apart, wrap the whole pole in a blanket and keep it with the other long, awkward items rather than letting it lie loose in the truck.
Lampshades are the fussiest thing in the house
Shades are the part people get wrong, because the instinct is to protect them the way you protect everything else, and that instinct is backwards.
Do not wrap a lampshade in newspaper or packing paper. The ink transfers onto the fabric, and paper pressed against a shade leaves marks and creases that do not come out. Do not stuff packing material inside a shade either.
What a shade actually wants is its own box, slightly larger than the shade, with nothing touching the outside surface. If you have two shades of different sizes, a smaller one can nest inside a larger one with a sheet of clean tissue between them, which is the one case where nesting is fine. Fill the space around the outside with a very light material such as clean tissue or a soft cloth, just enough to stop it sliding.
Mark the box clearly as a lampshade box and do not put anything on top of it. A shade is one of the few things in a move that is ruined by weight alone, without ever being dropped.
Mirrors, and why the edges matter most
A mirror is a sheet of glass that is strong across its face and weak at its edges and corners. Almost every mirror that arrives in poor shape was knocked at a corner, not struck in the middle.
The right container is a mirror carton, an adjustable box made in flat panels that telescope to fit the size of the piece. It is a standard moving supply item. Before the mirror goes in, put a layer of paper or bubble over the glass, then cardboard corner protectors on all four corners. If you do not have corner protectors, folded cardboard taped over each corner does the job.
A piece of tape across the face of the glass is an old habit worth skipping. It does not hold glass together in any useful way, and the adhesive can pull at the silvering on an older mirror when it comes off.
Mirrors travel standing on edge, never flat, and never with anything stacked on them. Glass carries weight well along its edge and poorly across its face. In a truck they belong upright against a wall with padding between them, which is standard practice for flat glass of any kind.
Heavy wall mirrors, the sort mounted on a cleat above a console table, are a two person job coming off the wall. Take the cleat off the wall with the mirror, leave it attached, and bag the anchors with it.
Framed photos and everyday wall decor
The gallery wall is the thing that takes longest to take down and longest to put back up, so give it a head start.
Photograph the wall before you touch it. You will want that picture later, and you will not remember the arrangement.
Small and medium frames pack well in a picture carton or a standard small box, standing upright on edge like records in a crate, with a sheet of paper between each one. Wrap each frame individually first. Larger frames get the same treatment as mirrors: corner protectors, upright, nothing on top.
Fine art and anything with real value is a different conversation and is planned separately from the rest of the household. If you have pieces in that category, tell us about them specifically rather than letting them go in with the family photos.
Leave the hanging hardware in the wall or bag it with the frame it belongs to. Either is fine; what does not work is a handful of loose picture hooks in the bottom of a box.
Things still screwed to the wall
Sconces, wall clocks, floating shelves, curtain rods and brackets all need to come down, and all of them need the power or the water situation thought through first where that applies. Anything hardwired, such as a sconce or a ceiling fixture, is an electrician’s job rather than a mover’s. Have that done before moving day, not on it.
For everything that simply unscrews, take it down the day before and bag the screws and anchors with the item. Curtain rods pack with the long, awkward items. Curtains and blinds, if they are coming with you, fold flat into a box of their own.
Taking wall items down early has a second benefit worth mentioning: it clears the walls before the crew arrives, and walls with nothing on them are much easier to move furniture past. Our guide on how movers protect floors, walls and doorways covers why that matters on a tight hallway or a stairway turn.
Mark the boxes that have to stay upright
Lampshades, mirrors and framed pieces all share one requirement: they must not have weight on them and some must not be laid flat. That is information that has to be on the outside of the box, in large letters, on more than one side.
Write what is inside and which way is up. A box marked only fragile tells nobody anything useful, because half the boxes in a house are fragile. A box marked lampshade, do not stack tells a person carrying it exactly what to do with it in about a second, and that is the whole point.
Keep these boxes together in one spot in the room rather than mixed in with the rest. Grouping them means they get loaded together and travel together.
In the new house
Unpack lamps early, before the light fades on your first evening. A house with boxes everywhere and one working ceiling fixture is a miserable place to spend a night, and putting three lamps back together takes about ten minutes.
Mirrors and framed pieces can wait. When they come in, they get set in the room they belong to and left leaning safely against a wall, out of a walkway, ready for you to hang whenever you get to it. Most people take a few weeks to decide where things go in a new house anyway, and there is no rush.
The one thing worth doing straight away is unpacking the shades and getting them off the floor, since a lampshade sitting in a busy room is a lampshade waiting to be stepped on.
Tell us what the awkward pile looks like
Serving Naples since 2010, we have packed a great many lamps, mirrors and gallery walls, and the ones that go smoothly are the ones we know about ahead of time. A large mirror, a wall of framed pieces, an antique lamp or a hardwired fixture that needs an electrician are all things worth mentioning when we come out to look at the move.
If you would rather hand the whole fussy category to someone else, that is what our packing services are for. Call us at (239) 231-7050 and tell us what you are looking at, and we will tell you plainly what it needs.
