Save your Monet: 4 tips for moving art
If you’re someone who moves around a lot, you may not have many large pieces of art decorating your home. The reason behind this decision is likely thus:
It can be a giant pain to get a big painting into a new place.
There are plenty of step-by-step guides online that will help get you through the process. Here are some common tips to keep at the forefront to ensure that your picasso makes it to your new home in one piece.
Spend your money
Unfortunately, this is no time to skimp on the trimmings. Packing art can be a hassle at the best of times, and you may have to shell out some money to make sure that you’re best protecting your pieces. Even though it might seem more convenient to grab last week’s Sunday edition instead of picking up some thicker wrapping paper somewhere, the ink might rub off onto your canvas, and then you’ll be spending even more money to get the piece restored. Similarly, forking over the cash for reinforced, specialty boxes will be more expensive than repurposing bicycle boxes, but if the structural integrity of a box is compromised, then all the bubble wrap in the world won’t save your art from damage and temperature fluctuations.
Do your research
The reason we’ve linked to multiple guides above is simple: you can’t have too much information on this subject. Much like how art is open to interpretation, there is no right answer to how best to move it around. Canvassing multiple opinions is a good idea – no art pun intended. What works for one type of painting may not work for another. As always, research is your friend – and you can’t say the same for a harsh piece of cardboard that scrapes away the raised brushstrokes of your favourite acrylic landscape!
Bigger is better
If you’re not sure whether something’s protected enough, use more bubble wrap. If that means the bubble-wrapped painting doesn’t fit in the box that you thought it would, get a bigger box. If that increases your shipping costs, pay extra. It’s a lot easier to haul around comically large boxes which only hold a single painting than it will be to get a brush and try touching up the ace (held, of course, by that adorable cheating, poker playing bulldog.)
Talk about your art
Be completely open with everyone working on your move about how important your pieces are to you. You want to ensure that there is no way that the box containing your treasured art is mismanaged en route. People want to care. But sometimes you have to show them how important something is to you before they care enough to go the extra mile.
Using the time-honored practices of obsessive research, budgeting correctly, and communicating how important your pieces are to you and your home, will make moving your art relatively easy – although by no means stress-free – process.
For stress-free, contact your local You Move Me franchise!
Good luck!
