How to Pack Drawers for Moving

Every time you’re about to pack furniture with drawers, one important question that you will definitely ask yourself is, “Should I empty the drawers before packing the furniture?”.

In fact, it’s an excellent question because there are basically two scenarios when packing and moving furniture with drawers – dressers, chest of drawers, desks, filing cabinets, china cabinets, beds, etc.:

• Scenario 1: LEAVE the drawers full with whatever items they contain – clothes, bed linens, towels, blankets, documents, books, jewelry pieces, office materials, various small items, and so on, and then pack the drawers for moving;
• Scenario 2: EMPTY the drawers completely, pack their contents separately into suitable cardboard boxes, and then protect the drawers for transport.

Before you can pack furniture that has drawers, you should always first decide what to do with what’s inside those drawers – pack those items separately or leave them in the drawers. Only then should you start thinking about how to pack the drawers themselves – that is, to pad them well so that they stay protected until they reach the new home.

Read on to find the answer to that important question and to learn the best way to pack drawers for moving so that the furniture in question stays 100% safe throughout the move.

Should you empty the drawers at all?

The best way to know whether or not you should empty the drawers before packing the furniture is to assess each furniture moving case individually. Here are some pointers that will help you decide what’s best for both your furniture item and for you as the furniture owner.

Sturdiness of the furniture piece

How strong a furniture piece will influence your decision whether or not to empty its drawers.

LEAVE DRAWERS FULL: If the furniture piece you’re moving is a high-quality one that’s built to last, then you may consider leaving the drawers full inside it. That’s usually the case when you’re moving furniture made of solid wood instead of pressed wooden particles. It’s important to understand that the full drawers will add extra weight to the furniture structure, so you want to be sure that the unit will be able to bear that additional pressure during the move won’t prove to be too much.

Therefore, sturdy furniture with drawers should be able to survive a house move with its drawers full and well secured in place through several rounds of stretch wrap.

EMPTY DRAWERS: On the other hand, if you’re planning on packing and moving any ready-to-assemble furniture pieces (think IKEA) that look and feel rather flimsy and frail, then it’s a great idea to not only remove the contents of their drawers, but to pack and move those drawers separately from the main structure.

As a rule of thumb, chipboard furniture does not move well, so it’s debatable whether you should move any ready-to-assemble furniture at all. Also, it’s rather risky to leave the drawers full when moving antique furniture that’s both very old and very valuable.

Therefore, flimsy furniture with drawers will not usually survive the house move unscathed if the full drawers add extra stress to the structure. Do consider removing everything from the drawers, including taking out the drawers themselves.

Available manpower

Do you have enough manpower to lift and carry furniture with its drawers secured in place and loaded?

LEAVE DRAWERS FULL: If you’ve made up your mind to move without professional assistance but you’ve managed to secure the help of enough friendly helpers, then you may as well decide to leave the drawers inside the furniture unit in order to save time. By using enough manpower, you and your friends should be able to cope with the extra weight that the full drawers add.

More helpers on Moving day also ensures that the chances of property damage will be close to zero thanks to your joint ability to keep the furniture unit upright and to navigate it safely through small door openings and narrow hallways without any major risks.

Of course, when using professional moving services, the extra weight of the full drawers cannot possibly slow down experienced movers who have the required strength and use the proper moving equipment.

Therefore, having the right amount of manpower at your disposal is an indicator that drawers may not need to be removed and emptied beforehand.

EMPTY DRAWERS: If you don’t have enough helpers but you’re still determent to pull it off by yourself, then you should do whatever it takes to make things easier and safer for yourself. In that case, it’s important to keep your furniture with drawers as light as possible. And how do you do just that? It’s simple: you empty the drawers and pack their contents in moving boxes.

Therefore, you should empty those drawers before protecting the furniture for transport. After all, it’s no secret that lighter furniture pieces are easier and safer to handle during a house move.

How to move heavy furniture by yourself

Items inside the drawers

Can you leave items in drawers when moving? The answer to this question depends largely on what’s inside those drawers.

LEAVE DRAWERS FULL: If the drawers are full of lightweight and non-breakable items – for example, clothes, bed linens, or blankets, then it’ll make sense to leave those soft goods inside to save both packing time and space inside the cardboard containers.

For example, moving a dresser with your clothes inside is usually a good idea because those pieces of clothing cannot get damaged during the haul no matter the position in which the furniture piece is moved around. Also, the clothes will not affect the weight too much, and the time you’ll save from having to pack those clothes in separate boxes should make it worthwhile.

EMPTY DRAWERS: Often, drawers will contain heavy items (books), fragile items (anything made from glass or porcelain), valuable objects (money, documents, jewelry, electronic gadgets), or small items of various origin that can easily shift around and either break or damage the furniture compartment they’re stored in.

In such cases, you are strongly recommended to empty the drawers before packing and moving the furniture item. Bear in mind that risking property damage just to save a bit of time is not the right tactic when packing for moving.

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Upright position during the move

Think about how the furniture item that has drawers will be handled throughout the move – will it be flipped sideways in order to fit through an opening or be carried upstairs or downstairs? Or will the unit be lifted, carried, and loaded into the moving truck almost entirely in an upright position?

LEAVE DRAWERS FULL as long as the furniture piece can be moved upright, without having to turn it sideways in order to pass through a small or tight place.

EMPTY DRAWERS if you plan to flip the furniture unit sideways, especially when you’re going up or down stairs, or turning around a sharp turn.

How to pack drawers for moving: Step by step guide

Now that you know whether it’s better to leave the drawers of a furniture piece full as they are or to empty them for easier and safer transport, let’s take a closer look at the detailed steps of packing drawers for moving.

Basically, you’ve got 2 options to pack up your drawers: pack them full or pack them empty.

How to pack full drawers for moving

As you just learned, leaving the drawers full when moving furniture is a good idea when 1) the furniture piece is sturdy and well-built, 2) the drawers contain light and non-breakable items, and 3) you have enough helpers to help you with the extra furniture weight.

Note that this is the preferred method when packing dressers for a move. Why? Because dressers tend to hold various pieces of clothing and bedding that are both light and non-fragile – exactly the combination you’re looking for when you wish to save valuable time by packing dresser drawers without emptying them first.

Here’s how to pack full drawers INSIDE the furniture unit:

1. OPEN a drawer as far as it will go without taking it out.
2. EXAMINE the contents of the drawer – ideally, the items inside will be soft and light. If a drawer is half-empty, then consider adding other soft goods inside to save boxes and to utilize the storage space of the furniture itself.
3. POSITION a sheet or two of clean packing paper over the drawer items as an extra layer of protection.
4. CLOSE the drawer tight.
5. USE one round of stretch wrap over the drawer and around the entire furniture piece to prevent the drawer from opening during transport.

Here’s how to pack full drawers OUTSIDE the furniture unit:

1. TAKE OUT a drawer and place it carefully on the ground.
2. EXAMINE what’s inside the compartment. When there are non-fragile items such as clothes and bedding, consider adding more soft goods if space allows it. When there are various smaller items that will shift around on the road, then add sheets of clean paper or small pieces of clothing to fill in the empty space.
3. USE stretch wrap to cover completely the top open part of the drawer to contain whatever’s inside.
4. WRAP the entire drawer in moving blankets, then secure the pads with pieces of tape.

How to disassemble furniture when moving

How to pack empty drawers for moving

Remember that it’s a good idea to empty the drawers when 1) the furniture unit is too old (antique furniture) or too flimsy (chipboard furniture), 2) the drawers contain heavy items, breakable objects, or valuables, and 3) you don’t have enough helpers, so you want to make the furniture as light as possible.

Here’s how to pack empty drawers:

• PREPARE suitable moving containers for the things currently inside the drawers. In most cases, you’ll need standard moving boxes.
• PLACE clean sheets of packing paper on the bottom of the packing boxes for extra protection.
• OPEN a drawer and start transferring its contents into a moving box. The recommended way is to start from the bottom drawer and continue upwards.
• PACK the items from the drawer by following the best packing practices. In the case of fragile objects, use bubble wrap for maximum protection. When packing books, don’t pack your copies with their spines facing you for fear of damaging their bindings.
• PACK everything snugly into the moving box and use pieces of crushed paper to fill in any empty spaces.
• LABEL the box properly and tape it shut.

How to protect furniture when moving

Once a drawer is completely empty, you’ve got a couple of options:

1. RE-POSITION the empty drawer back to its original place, then use a few pieces of masking tape (painter’s tape) to keep the drawer from opening or wrap a couple of rounds of stretch wrap over the drawer and around the entire furniture unit.
   This packing method will make the furniture unit slightly heavier but will save storage space in the moving truck.
2. WRAP the empty drawer in a furniture blanket, then use a bit of packing tape to secure the pad. This way, you will move the drawers separately from the main furniture body.
   This packing method will keep the furniture unit as light as possible but the drawers will take extra space inside the moving vehicles.

Packing drawers for moving is not a complicated task by any means, but moving your large and heavy furniture items definitely is. Should you feel nervous about the upcoming move and you’re not 100% confident that you’ll be able to pull it off, get free quotes from experienced furniture movers to learn how much it’ll cost you to get the pros to help you out.