The kitchen is the hardest room in any house to pack. China cracks, knives are dangerous, food spoils, appliances are awkward. Here is how we do it.
Of the rooms we pack on every full packing service we deliver, the kitchen is the one that goes wrong most often when customers self-pack. Almost every breakage we ever see came from a kitchen carton — usually plates stacked flat, or wine glasses without internal padding, or a heavy chopping board landed on top of a cup. This guide walks through how the professionals do it.
Three rules cover most of what you need to know: pack heavy at the bottom and light on top, never stack plates flat, and always put internal padding into hollow items before you wrap the outside. The detail below applies those rules to every category of kitchen item, from china and glass through to small appliances and food.
The right materials are the difference between a kitchen that arrives intact and one that arrives with chips and cracks. You need removal-grade cartons in two sizes (small for heavy items like books and tinned food, medium for crockery and pans), 50mm vinyl packing tape (not the pound-shop parcel tape — that releases in a warm lorry), bubble wrap, acid-free packing tissue, and divider inserts for glass and stemware. We stock all of these at our Lower Dicker packaging shop; if you'd rather buy a kit, the packing materials page has standard sets for one-bed up to five-bed homes.
Avoid newspaper for china and silver — newsprint transfers ink and you'll spend the first weekend at the new house cleaning it off. Tissue is cheap; buy proper packing tissue. Avoid old shoeboxes and reused supermarket boxes — they aren't built for stacking and the bases give out under the weight of a lorry-load on top.
The other piece of kit worth having is a permanent marker. Every carton needs the room (KITCHEN) and the contents (PLATES, FRAGILE, MUGS, etc.) written on at least three sides. Marker on the top alone is useless once a carton is stacked.
Plates always pack vertically, like records in a sleeve, never stacked flat. The compressive forces in a moving lorry are vertical; a stack of flat plates becomes a tower of shears that breaks the lowest plate. Vertical plates with tissue between each one transfer that force into the carton walls.
Bottom of the carton: a 4cm layer of crumpled tissue or bubble wrap. Then plates standing on their edges, each separated by a sheet of tissue. Wrap the largest plates first, fill the gaps with smaller ones, and finish with a generous layer of tissue on top. Don't overfill — a carton of plates should be lift-able with one hand. If it feels heavy, split it into two.
Fine china, antique china, family heirlooms — we'd usually recommend a fragile-only pack from a trained packer rather than self-pack. We offer this on most local moves as a flat per-house rate and it is by some margin the highest-value packing option we sell. The other option is our white-glove service where every fragile piece is individually wrapped and inventoried.
Wine glasses and stemware need internal padding — a small twist of tissue paper inside the bowl prevents the bowl walls from flexing inwards under stress. Without that internal pad, even a properly wrapped wine glass can crack across the bowl during transit. Tissue inside, then bubble wrap or tissue around the outside, then divider inserts in the carton.
Bottles — alcohol, vinegar, sauce — pose two problems: they're heavy and they're at risk of leaking onto everything else. Wrap each bottle in bubble wrap, seal the lid with electrical tape (more reliable than the screw cap on its own), and load bottles into a carton that you've lined with a heavy bin liner. If a bottle leaks, the liner stops the leak destroying the carton bottom and everything below.
For decanters, crystal and high-value glass, take photographs before packing — useful for both insurance purposes and for the unpacker (you, in a fortnight's time) to know where every piece is supposed to go. Standard goods-in-transit insurance covers breakages but for single items over £2,500 we'll want them listed specifically on the contract before move day.
Small appliances — kettles, toasters, food processors, microwaves — pack in their original boxes if you still have them. If not, use a medium carton, fill the empty cavity inside the appliance with bubble wrap (so the internal components don't rattle), and wrap the outside in two layers of bubble. Label the carton with the appliance name and APPLIANCE-FRAGILE.
Knives and sharp blades need wrapping for the safety of whoever opens the carton at the other end. Wrap each blade individually in two layers of cardboard taped securely, then group them in a single labelled carton — KITCHEN-KNIVES-SHARP. Never wrap a knife and a fragile item together; a slip mid-unpacking can cut through bubble wrap and slice a hand.
Pans and heavier cookware go in the bottom of cartons. Cast iron, Le Creuset, heavy stockpots — stack in twos with tissue between, lid separately wrapped. Baking trays, oven dishes and Pyrex go on top of pans. As with plates, never overfill — a heavy carton is a carton that gets dropped. If you're not sure about a specific item, ask at survey stage and we'll cover it in the quote.
Food is the trickiest kitchen category because of three constraints: it spoils, it leaks, and removal insurance generally doesn't cover it. The honest answer for most moves is to run the cupboards down before moving — use up what you can in the four weeks before, donate unopened tins to a food bank, and arrive at the new house with only essentials in transit.
What does need to move: tinned goods (small carton, heavy-bottom-loaded), dry goods like rice, pasta and flour (sealed in their original packaging plus an extra bin-liner sleeve), oils and condiments (wrapped and bottle-lined as described above), and the contents of the freezer if the move is short enough that it'll stay frozen.
Freezer contents: empty the freezer 24 hours before move day, transfer to cool boxes with ice packs, and run them direct to the new property in your car rather than in the lorry. For longer moves (overseas, long-distance UK) the practical answer is to use the freezer down and not move its contents at all. Talk to us at survey stage if you're moving abroad — different countries have different food import rules and we can advise.
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Kitchen self-packing is a real time-sink. A typical three-bedroom kitchen contains 150–300 individual items between china, glass, cookware, small appliances, food and miscellaneous. Properly packed (everything wrapped, vertical plate stacks, internal padding in glasses), that’s 8 to 12 hours of work. Done in a hurry the night before move day, it’s where most breakages happen.
Our fragile-only packing service handles the kitchen plus other breakables (display cabinet, framed art, mirrors) the day before move day. Typical cost on a three-bed home is £220–£340 inclusive of removal-grade cartons, tissue and labour. The crew arrives with materials, packs methodically room by room, leaves a written inventory.
Worth knowing: standard goods-in-transit insurance covers professionally-packed breakage but typically excludes self-packed cartons. For high-value items — antique china, crystal stemware, hand-blown glass — the insurance difference alone often pays for the professional pack. Have a chat at survey stage and we can quote both options.
We've been a family-run Sussex remover since 1982 — the same name on the lorry as the name on the paperwork. Mark personally surveys the high-value and overseas moves; our crews are directly employed (not casual day labour) and trained at our own staff training centre, one of only a handful of UK removers with that facility on site.
Standard inclusions on every full removal: pad-wrap protection for every freestanding piece of furniture, removal-grade cartons, a written and itemised fixed-price quote with no surprises on the day, and the British Association of Removers' Advance Payment Guarantee protecting every deposit. The result, over forty years and tens of thousands of moves, is a 4.9/5 review average across 120+ independent Google reviews.
Booking the survey takes ten minutes. Whether it's a one-bedroom flat across Eastbourne or a country house to overseas, the process is the same: in-home or video survey, written quote within 48 hours, deposit-protected booking, and a calm move day.
On their edges, always. Vertical stacking transfers compressive force into the carton walls; flat stacking concentrates it on the lowest plate and breaks it.
Yes — internal tissue prevents the bowl walls flexing inwards under stress. Without it, even a well-wrapped wine glass can crack across the bowl during transit.
For glassware, yes (with tissue still in the bowl). For china and silver, no — newsprint transfers ink and you'll spend the weekend cleaning it off. Tissue is cheap; just buy proper packing tissue.
Yes — kitchen-only or full-house packing the day before move day. Trained crew, removal-grade cartons, written inventory. About £220–£340 for fragile-only on a typical 3-bed.
Empty 24 hours before, transfer to cool boxes with ice packs, run them in your car not the lorry. For long-distance or overseas moves, use the freezer down beforehand.