Lamp boxes
Researched and written by Ashley Davis · Reviewed by Emily Johnson · Last reviewed August 2026
A lamp box is tall and narrow, typically around 12 by 12 by 40 inches, and it exists for the base and the column. The shade does not travel in it. A lamp has three parts that fail differently: a heavy base that wants to tip, a column that snaps at its joint, and a shade that crushes under almost no weight at all.
Why does the shade travel separately?
Because a shade is a stretched skin over a wire frame and its strength is in tension, not compression. Anything resting on it pushes the frame out of round, and a shade that has been out of round does not come back. Shades travel in their own box, nested inside each other with paper between if you have several, and nothing goes inside a shade at any point.
How do you pack the base?
Take off the shade, the harp and the bulb, in that order, and bag the harp and finial with the base. Wrap the base in paper and the column separately if it detaches. A weighted base goes at the bottom of the box, upright, and the space around it is filled so the column cannot swing. A column that can swing inside a tall box is a lever with a heavy weight at one end.
What about floor lamps?
Floor lamps usually come apart into two or three sections, and they should. A full-height floor lamp packed whole needs a box nobody has, and taped to its own length it will bend at the joint. Separate the sections, bag the fittings with the section they came from, and wrap each in a blanket rather than a box if you have no lamp carton.
What goes wrong?
The bulb, more often than anything else. A bulb left in a lamp breaks inside the shade or the box, and the glass then travels with everything else. After that, shades: crushed by being packed under something, or packed with something inside them. Both are avoidable in the thirty seconds it takes to strip the lamp down before it goes anywhere, as the lamp packing guide sets out.