How to wrap furniture for moving

Soft against the finish, padding over it, tension outside. In practice that is a moving blanket directly on the wood, then a second blanket over corners and edges if the piece is going a long way, then stretch wrap around the outside to hold the blankets on. Every layer has one job, and the outer layer's job is compression rather than protection.

Because it seals. A finish continues to release solvent for years, and film pressed against it traps that vapour with any ambient moisture, which clouds a surface or leaves the plastic tacky against it. The effect gets worse with heat, and a truck in summer is hot. Film is safe over a blanket, over cardboard, and over unfinished or laminated surfaces, but not on lacquer, shellac, wax or oil.

Corners take almost every impact, so they get double material: a folded blanket, a cardboard corner protector, or both. Table and desk edges get a strip of card taped over the padding rather than the surface. On a piece with a projecting moulding or a carved edge, pad up to the height of the projection so nothing bears on the moulding itself when the piece is set down.

Anything flat and brittle. Glass table tops, stone surfaces and mirrored panels take a sheet of card cut to size before any blanket, because a blanket alone lets a point load reach the panel. Glass tops are ideally removed and crated separately. Screens, panelled doors and anything with an inset pane get the same treatment: rigid first, soft over it.

Enough that no part of the piece can touch anything else in the truck. That usually means full coverage rather than padding only the visible faces, because a piece is loaded against other pieces and rubs against them for the whole journey. Abrasion over hours, not a single impact, is what produces most of the marks discovered at delivery.

Film applied directly to a finish, tape stuck to wood or leather, and blankets applied so loosely that they slide off during the carry and leave the piece bare exactly when it matters. Tape only ever bonds to tape or to film, never to the furniture. If a blanket needs holding while you work, band it with film rather than reaching for the tape roll.