If you are moving to a new apartment, home, or your place of living is going through renovations, odds are your high value items, like fine art, will need to be protected and moved too. These items can be tricky to deal with due to value or fragility. Consider the following for your next steps:
COMPILE A LIST
This may sound straight forward, but if you have a lot of items, the more information you have on them the better! Here are some points to include in your list:
Estimated Dimensions, Artist, Title, Date
Information specific to each item is the most important. Some pieces don’t have their information written/attached to them; compiling all the information you have on a list will guarantee it doesn’t get lost. Your piece’s provenance will identify what is what. Providing specific information like dimensions will allow professionals to have a better idea of what they are dealing with. Having this list is also a great reference for you when trying to remember what you have and what was moved.
Value
How much is your piece worth? How much sentimental value does your piece have? This information is good to know to determine how much care you wish to be given to your items.
On Site Location
Where is your piece located in your home? When you have many pieces, often the location can get mixed up. It is helpful to know just where each piece is, especially if it is being professionally handled.
Insurance
Do your items have insurance? If your artworks are leaving their resting place during moving, damage is a lot more likely to occur. It is important to note if your pieces have insurance just in case.
HIRE PROFESSIONAL HELP
Professional art handling companies, like A2//Artserve, are expertly trained to deal with your artwork & high value items. Their expertise can be invaluable when safely packing and transporting your work. Oftentimes, professionals will schedule a site visit before anything happens. They will begin compiling a list of their own using the information from your original list. Then, they will begin taking images of your work and making sure all pieces are accounted for in reference to the list.
Come moving day, they will wrap your items with foam and poly to protect them from the elements and transport them to a safe place for temporary storage. They will know how best to organize your work. When it comes time to move back in, they can also put it back exactly where it came from based on their initial reference images.
ART STORAGE
When big life events are happening like moving or renovating, you will want a safe place to put your high value art & items while you wait to move back in. Art handlers, like Artserve, can move your work to an Art Storage facility, like A2 Art Storage, for a safe and temporary “home away from home”. After your work comes in for temporary storage, your work can be inventoried so that everything is accounted for. Here is another blog post where we dive into inventory and its importance when storing artwork.