When packing by yourself, you’ll need a lot of moving blankets in addition to the standard packing items like cartons, packaging paper, and plastic wrap. This is particularly crucial if you want to bring any of your furniture and/or home appliances with you.

Thick furniture blankets can wrap and protect appliances, furniture, and other possessions from damage (scrapes, scratches, dents, nicks, scuffs, and so on) — this is known as direct protection.

In addition, by wrapping your heavy things in moving covers, you will protect the walls, flooring, and doorways from damage — this is known as indirect protection. When moving, it’s advisable to have a pile of moving blankets on hand to guarantee that your furniture and appliances arrive undamaged.

Continue reading to find out how to use moving blankets, and whether you should use furniture protectors.

Photo by lodimetals

What are the benefits of using moving blankets?

It is very advised to utilize furniture covers during a home relocation. If you’re thinking if you really need moving blankets, consider the following benefits of utilizing furniture pads while moving out

• During a move, moving blankets help protect valuable furniture from dents, nicks, and other sorts of untimely damage. How? The cushions will provide a strong insulating barrier around the delicate things you want to safeguard.
• Furniture blankets can absorb any bumps,  vibrations, or shocks that may occur on the way to the new house. This reduces the possibility of your blanket-wrapped appliances and furniture being damaged by shocks or vibrations.
• Moving blankets help protect your fragile things from dust and filth throughout the move process.
• Furniture cushions will safeguard house walls and floors indirectly as well. If a well-padded piece of furniture or home appliance collides with the wall or the flooring, the latter will be unharmed due to the thick cushion that surrounds the delicate object that is being moved outdoors or within the home.

Are moving blankets water-resistant? No, they are not — if wet, furniture blankets would absorb fluids.

Remember that if your furniture cushions are exposed to heavy rainfall, for instance, water will seep in through dense cotton or polyester cushion. Then it will finally reach the vulnerable surface of the things you’re attempting to protect. That’s why, when you move furniture in the downpours, you should always add another layer of plastic stretch wrap well over blankets. This will help protect the appliances and furniture from possible water damage.

How to Make Use of Moving Blankets

Now that you’re aware of the obvious benefits of employing moving blankets throughout your move, let’s look at how to really put those protecting blankets to work in your favor.

To protect your furnishings

The procedure for covering furniture with moving blankets is simple:

• Place a moving blanket over the furniture you intend to protect.
• The first blanket should be used to cover as much of the furniture as possible.
• Using packing tape, secure the heavy padding to the furniture. Avoid letting the tape come into touch with the furniture surfaces with the loose ends of a moving cover to the blanket itself.
• Instead of packing tape, use a covering of stretch wrap to bind the furniture blanket to the furniture item. Both choices are acceptable; it is only a question of personal taste.
• If the furniture item is too huge to be entirely covered by one moving blanket, use a second one. Secure the next furniture pad as instructed before, and if necessary, use the third one.
• Examine carefully to see whether the whole piece of furniture has been wrapped in moving blankets. Make sure no portions of your precious furnishings are left exposed to reduce the chance of damage.

To safeguard appliances

Use the above-mentioned techniques to wrap home appliances in secure blankets since the packing work is equivalent to that of packing furniture for moving. However, before wrapping an item in moving blankets, ensure sure the electrical wire is securely fastened to prevent tripping.

After wrapping the items in moving blankets, it’s time to move them out of the home and put them into the moving van. If any of them are too big to handle, use furniture or an appliance dolly to gently transport them out.

Protect the walls, doors, and door frames

Wrapping your appliances and furniture with covers can indirectly safeguard your wall, floors, and doors. However, if you’re truly concerned about causing harm to the walls – such as a steep corner, for example — you may bind some blankets to those susceptible wall locations just in case.

Also, to prevent doorways and doors from being accidentally damaged, wrap a thick blanket over the top half of a door and bind the blanket to the door frame using painter’s tape. Attach a following blanket to the first one if necessary to cover the full door from top to bottom.

How many moving blankets will you require?

This is a difficult topic, but you should be able to estimate the number of furniture covers you will have to rent or purchase to protect your expensive things.

Take a pen and a paper and walk through your whole house, assigning furniture pads to any things that will need additional protection.

• For smaller goods like a microwave, a tiny tabletop, a dining seat, a flat-screen Television, etc, use ONE moving blanket.
• Larger goods, such as a bookshelf, a coffee table, an upholstered chair, a small dining table, and so on, should be moved using TWO moving blankets.
• Assign 3 moving blankets to bigger goods such as a large kitchen table, a couch, and the majority of equipment you wish to take with you, such as the refrigerator, washing, dryer, etc.

Take note that a normal furniture blanket is 72 inches by 80 inches in size. When in doubt, it’s always a good idea to have extra moving blankets on hand than you think you’ll need.

READ: 4 Best Packing Materials For Safe and Secure Moving

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