Helpful Moving Tips for Artists and Art Collectors

If you’re an artist, moving to a new home can be especially stressful. Not only do you have to worry about protecting your essential art supplies throughout the moving process, you might be concerned about transporting sculptures, paintings, or other pieces that you’ve collected over the years. But with advanced planning, you can navigate the process with ease. And when you arrive in your new home, you can spruce it up with unique paintings by Deb Chaney! Here are a few tips on protecting your valuable art supplies and beloved artwork.

Tackle Home Repairs First
Before you begin the process of carefully storing and packing your fine art pieces, you’ll need to take care of a few tasks in your current home. Prior to putting your house on the market, it’s a good idea to tackle minor repairs on your own. This will make the property more appealing for buyers and help you sell on a faster timeline. You can also hire contractors to take care of more labor-intensive repairs, like fixing cracked windows or leaking pipes.

Hire Professional Movers
You might be nervous to entrust any of your art supplies or pieces to anyone but yourself. But professional movers who have experience working with fragile items can be a big help during your move. To find the right moving company, Neighbor recommends calling several companies and asking them to come to your home so they can assess your inventory. Tell them about your unique packing needs. They can discuss their procedures for packing and transporting fragile items and give you an accurate price quote.

Get the Right Supplies

Even if you’re hiring professional movers, there’s a good chance that you will be handling much of the packing process on your own. In order to pack up large items like a kiln oven or blank canvases, you’ll need the right supplies. Get large boxes that can comfortably fit these items, and make sure you have packing materials to cushion them, like unprinted news wrapping paper, bubble wrap, and even furniture pads.

Storing Fine Art
What if you’ll be living with friends or family in between moving out of your current home and moving into your new one? You’ll need to put some items, including your art supplies and artwork into temporary storage. If you’ll be storing artwork, you’ll need to select a storage space very carefully. Art Business News states that you should clean your artwork first with a soft microfiber cloth and cover it with cloth or parchment paper. Ideally, you’ll want to store your artwork in a dark, windowless, climate-controlled space with about 50 percent humidity and a temperature between 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Handling Fragile Items
You may want to unpack your fragile items shortly after arriving for peace of mind. Although working with reliable, experienced movers will greatly decrease the chances of a mishap, it’s important to know what to do if something valuable should break in the course of your move. If any of your art supplies or pieces of artwork are damaged, you will need to carefully assess the extent of the damage and file a claim with the moving company. Furthermore, for extra protection, you may want to get insurance for your most valuable items before you move. While this is an additional expense, you might feel more secure knowing that you have another option for reimbursement.

Packing up your art supplies and art collection for a big move can be nerve-wracking. But you can easily preserve all of these items while you relocate. With the right strategy, you’ll arrive at your new home with all of your most important belongings in great condition!

Want to decorate your new home with unique paintings? Shop for abstract pieces by Deb Chaney! Fill out the intake form today to order a custom commission painting.

This article was written by contributing guest blogger Gwen Payne. Payne is a stay-at-home mom with an entrepreneurial spirit. Over the years, she has mastered raising her two daughters while side hustling to success through small ventures based on her passions -- from dog walking to writing to e-commerce. With Invisiblemoms.com she hopes to show other stay-at-home parents how they can achieve their business-owning dreams. Contact her at: gwen@invisiblemoms.com

Stock Photo via Pexels