Bed Moving

From college to your first apartment and finally that home you've always dreamed about, the one thing you can expect to haul around through the early transitions of life is your bed. Your bed will also be the first thing you want unpacked at your new home, and if the mattress isn't packed properly, you may have to spend the night resting on a damaged or dirty bed. But no matter what mattress size you have, the same packing and moving rules will apply. This article offers step by step instructions on how to securely prepare your bed for moving.

Given that the mattress is the heaviest part of your bed, we'll take care of that first. If you didn't hire movers for your relocation and you plan on loading your items yourself, here's a quick way to simultaneously protect your mattress and move it to the truck. You'll need two fitted bed sheets, wrapping one around the back and one for the front so that the sheets overlap. Next, you'll need two sheets to create makeshift handles. Lay one old flat sheet on the ground and place the mattress on its side lengthwise on top of the sheet. Then grab the edges of the sheet and tie a knot from one end. Repeat this step on the other side. You should now have custom bottom handles. To create the top handles, you'll place the other old flat sheet on top and tie the edges together in the same manner as the bottom side.

If you're preparing your mattress to be loaded by professional movers, you'll need a mattress carton. Most local hardware stores will carry mattress boxes in different sizes to accommodate a wide variety of mattresses. Keep in mind that you should have someone helping you with the lifting. Slide the mattress inside the carton, seal it with packing tape, and write out the intended destination such as "master bedroom" with a magic marker. You'll want to disassemble your bed frame next. While you're taking apart the frame, collect and tie all of the cross pieces and rails together with tape. To ease the reassembling process, you should label the tape by numbers in order of which pieces fit together. Wrap your headboard and respective pieces in moving pads with twine to protect them from any potential scratching they may receive in transit.