How to Move Furniture: Keeping Track of Hardware & Other Parts

Moving furniture can be more complicated than you might imagine. Large items, including beds, dressers, and entertainment centers, are often dissembled prior to the move. This makes moving these items easier, and allows for the most efficient use of moving truck space. When your furniture arrives at its new destination, the movers reassemble your furniture in your new home.

Disassembly can be a very minor process, such as unscrewing the feet from an armchair, or it may be more involved. We don’t want to name names, but there is one famous Swedish furniture manufacturer who creates pieces that require significant amounts of time and energy to disassemble correctly. If you own this type of furniture, your customer service representative will be talking with you about the costs and timeline associated with moving it. The warranty on these items can require that they be disassembled only by an authorized factory representative: this is good information to have well in advance of your move.

Some pieces of furniture, such as antique items and clocks, aren’t suitable for this disassembly and reassembly process. In these instances, your movers will secure and protect your item and move it as a whole piece.

During full-service moves, our team will take care of the disassembly and reassembly process for you, with the exceptions noted above. If you choose to do this work yourself, it’s important to have a strategy in place to keep track of all of the screws, handles and other hardware. These small items are easy to lose! You need them to put your furniture back together, so it’s important to avoid losing them.

The best strategy we’ve found for containing screws, handles and hardware is to contain these items in large plastic bags that close with a zipper-style closure. You can label these bags with a marker. Indicate what piece of furniture the pieces go to. Keep all of the pieces for one piece of furniture together. Afterward, you can collect all of these pieces in a small tote for transport or secure them to the piece of furniture in question using packing tape.