How to protect furniture when moving

The route, end to end. Hard floors get a runner or laid card; carpet gets a self-adhesive film or a runner. The path runs from the furthest room to the truck without a gap, because the unprotected stretch is where the grit gets ground in. This takes twenty minutes and it is the difference between handing back a deposit intact and arguing about a scratch.

Wrap doorframes, newel posts and banister rails in padding held with film, and take doors off their hinges where a piece will be tight. Fixed obstacles are what furniture hits, because the furniture is being turned at exactly that point and the person turning it cannot see both ends. Padding the frame is easier than padding every piece that passes through it.

Furniture sliders under the feet for anything being repositioned, a four-wheel dolly for cased goods, and an appliance trolley with a strap for anything tall. Dragging a piece across a floor loads a leg sideways at the joint and marks the floor at the same time. Lift a piece a fraction to place a slider rather than tipping it onto one corner.

Anything staying behind on the route gets covered, not just the items going in the truck. A hall table, a radiator cover or a fitted bookcase beside a doorway will be struck by something passing, and it is not protected by being immobile. Drape and film them the same way, and clear anything small and breakable off the route entirely rather than working around it.

Walk the route with the crew before the first item moves and point out the tight turn, the loose stair tread, the low beam and the floor that must not be marked. Say which pieces are fragile or already repaired. A crew works to the information it has, and the constraint nobody mentioned is the one discovered by a piece of furniture at the moment of the turn.

Protection applied to furniture and none to the building, then a claim about a doorframe at the end of the day. Photograph the condition of floors, frames and walls before the move starts, at both addresses, since a dated photograph settles a disagreement that memory cannot. The second failure is a route half-cleared, so a crew carrying a wardrobe meets a box left in the hall.