There are few areas quite as intimidating as your kitchen when it comes to packing it up. Glasses, mugs, tea cups, weird shaped plates and servers… and where do you even fit in the saucers? It’s all so breakable! You get flashbacks from the last time you moved and one thing from every complete set broke, destroying your matching sets. Side note: Isn’t it amazing how it’s almost impossible to get them replaced without some sort of cosmic intervention or chaos magic in the mix?
Where do you even start? Well, with a box is usual. It’s good idea to properly reinforce and seal the bottom of the box you are planning to use in advance (i.e. BEFORE you put anything in it), with a reasonably strong packing tape. Seal the bottom seam and the side seams properly. Flatten the tape thoroughly to make sure it stays stuck. We do not want the bottom of the box landing in another dimension and your things broken on the floor. Glass, china and stoneware, as a rule do not bounce. Not to mention the frustrating mess glass makes.
You have a few choices when it comes to reasonably flat crockery items like plates etc. Bubble wrap is a popular choice(it may be a bit more bulky than tissue paper or newsprint but it also discourages overfilling because it takes up more space, therefore won’t be as heavy… down side: more boxes). Place the sheets between each plate before wrapping in tissue or newspaper. Stack the plates carefully taking note of any empty spaces. Void fill is great for filling open spaces in a box. Open space in a box filled with breakable, fragile things are the enemy here. You don’t want anything to move unduly of its own volition. Filling the spaces with void fill keeps any poltergeist activity to the bare minimum and your fragile items in one piece.
Now we move on to the nightmare machine that crockery with voids in their own construction pose. A reasonable rule of thumb is to scrunch up newspaper or tissue paper and stuff the void space. Then carefully insert bubble wrap or folder newsprint between any lids before wrapping the entire item in newspaper.
Don’t pack the items with “tension”, i.e. too tightly by forcing extra things into the box. This is how they explode, crack or get chipped in transit. Add an extra sheet of bubble wrap before you seal the box. There is nothing worse than opening a box to be confronted by the confetti of a thousand tiny, sharded daggers.