Some items don’t fit in a cardboard carton, no matter how cleverly we pad them. A 2-metre oil painting, a French armoire that comes apart but not into anything carton-sized, a Steinway grand on its side, a marble bust, a roomful of antique furniture being shipped to Sydney — these all need bespoke timber crates built around the item. We design and build custom crates in our Sussex workshop, all ISPM-15 compliant for international shipping, and we crate, load, ship and uncrate end-to-end so you only deal with us.
A bespoke timber crate is the gold standard of protective packing. It is the only way to fully protect items that are large, fragile, oddly-shaped or going overseas through multiple touchpoints. The fundamentals:
Oil paintings over a metre, framed prints under glass, sculpture, ceramics on plinths. The crate is essentially an exoskeleton.
Pieces that can’t be flat-packed or risk damage to veneer or marquetry if pad-wrapped only.
For overseas shipments only — UK piano moves we handle on a board. International shipments always go in a custom crate.
Antique gilt-framed mirrors and large modern mirrors. Glass is the most damage-prone material in any move.
Movement removed and crated separately. Case crated upright with internal blocking.
Vintage hi-fi, professional studio equipment, large-format printers, server racks — anything where a drop is unrecoverable.
If your crate is going outside the UK, the timber must be ISPM-15 compliant. ISPM-15 (International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures No. 15) requires wood-packaging material crossing international borders to be heat-treated or fumigated to kill wood pests, and stamped with the IPPC mark by a registered facility. Non-compliant crates are rejected at the destination port — sometimes destroyed at your expense.
We hold ISPM-15-compliant timber stock as standard. Every crate we build for international shipment carries the IPPC stamp on at least two sides of the crate, plus its registration number and our facility code. If you’re reading this and wondering whether your current crate-builder is compliant, ask for their IPPC registration number and check it on the UK government register.
Crate prices are quoted per crate. Typical guide prices for Sussex builds:
Volume discounts apply on jobs of 4 or more crates — common on overseas household consignments.
Three situations make a bespoke timber crate worth the extra cost. The first is overseas shipping of something irreplaceable — a piece of art, a piece of family furniture, an instrument — where the container journey passes through multiple transhipments, customs handling and forklift moves. A cardboard carton can’t survive that; a properly-built timber crate can. The second is high-value items inside the UK where insurance excludes “packaging at the customer’s own discretion” — an oil painting, a rare wine collection, a marble sculpture — and the crate becomes part of the insurance certificate. The third is unusual shapes (curved sculptures, large mirrors, antique tools) that no off-the-shelf box accommodates.
Every crate is built at our Lower Dicker workshop from kiln-dried plywood with internal foam padding shaped to the item. We measure your piece in person at the survey (or from photos with confirmed dimensions for distant orders), build to the exact shape, and label with shipping-grade fragile markings and orientation arrows. For ISPM-15 international shipping, all timber is heat-treated and stamped accordingly — required for entry into Australia, the US, China and most of Asia.
A small art crate (under 100×75×15 cm) starts around £180. A medium furniture crate (chest-of-drawers size) is £320–£480. Large multi-piece collections (a wine-room consolidated into one shipping crate, for example) run £600–£1,200. Always quoted before we build, never invoiced higher.
Typically 2–5 working days from order to delivery in Sussex. For complex or oversized crates allow up to 10 working days. Tell us your shipping deadline when you order and we’ll work backwards from it.
Yes. Upright, baby grand and full grand pianos. The crate is built around the instrument with internal blocking, blanket-wrap and humidity packs. For international shipments the crate always has the ISPM-15 stamp.
Usually no. A pad-wrap and a careful load is enough for the vast majority of UK domestic moves. Custom crates come into their own when there are multiple touchpoints (a port, a customs office, a forwarding warehouse) or the item is irreplaceable.
For UK moves we typically take the crate back to our workshop and break it down for re-use. For international shipments the crate is the destination handler’s problem — some destinations have take-back schemes; others recycle locally.
All ISPM-15 timber is heat-treated to 56°C for at least 30 minutes core temperature, which kills wood-boring insects and their eggs. The IPPC stamp on every crate confirms this. Non-international crates use the same stock by default.
From the blog
How our signature method works — wrap in your home, never unwrapped in transit, only unwrapped in final position.
Read article →
Step-by-step packing for china, glass, framed pictures, mirrors, electronics — from BAR-trained packers.
Read article →
What to check before you sign — BAR membership, insurance, written quotes, reviews. Plus the red flags that mean "walk away".
Read article →Call us today for a free, no-obligation quote — or use our online form. Whether it's a one-room move or a full international relocation, we've handled it before.