When not properly stored, your fine china and crystal may end up being broken. You certainly don’t want that to happen to your expensive porcelain or family’s heirlooms. In order to keep this from happening to you, here are simple tips to keep your fragile stuffs sale and protected.
The Right Box: Choosing the right box is just as important as packaging it up inside. With large boxes, they don’t tend to mix well with delicate china and crystal due to the fact that your contents can easily be shift around and end up broken. Having a small, sturdy boxes would let your fragile stuff sit still inside. Make sure that the box is made of thick and heavy duty cardboard.
Individually Wrapped: Each piece that you plan on placing into a box should be individually wrapped up using a dish and glassware protection kits. Often time these kits come in hand sets that include foam pockets for plates and glasses. If you can’t be bother with a kit since you may not have access to one, then wrapping up each item in multiple layers of packing paper works just as well. Keep in mind to place packing paper in the hollow of each glass and bowl.
Tight Packing: Start with placing your heaviest fragile item at the bottom and work up from there. Place a few layers of packing paper at the bottom of the box and use extra packing paper to fill up any spaces. The key here is to pack the box as tightly as you can so that nothing can shift but don’t jam-pack it because that could potentially be the cause of breakage.
Marks Boxes as “Fragile”: Keeping track of each box by marking them through labeling can help you be organized. Mark the boxes that contain valuable glassware and china as “fragile.” Label your boxes with a number and making a list of the box’s contents that correspond to that number.
Box Stacking: Now that you have all your fragile items neatly packed up and ready for storage, it’s crucially important that you stack the boxes correctly. Stack your china and glassware on top of heavier boxes to avoid any crushing and if you can then have a small section of your storage area just for fragile boxes. Remember: Heaviest box at the bottom and lighter ones on top. To prevent less risk of falling, don’t stack the boxes more than a few feet high.
Accidents happen from time to time and you can't prevent that from occuring but hopefully with these tips you can keep your fragile china and glassware safe and damage-free.
