Furniture Care Before and After Moving House (Delhi NCR)

1. Before moving day: photograph, label, decide

An hour of preparation now saves a great deal of confusion at the other end.

• Photograph every piece before it is touched, from a couple of angles, and photograph the back of anything with fittings. These pictures are what tell you how it went together and what condition it was already in.
• Empty everything, including the loft. A loaded wardrobe or drawer unit is far heavier than it should be and the extra weight is exactly what racks a carcass out of square when it is lifted.
• Measure the route out and the route in. The lift car and door, the staircase turn, both flat doors and the room doors. A fitted wardrobe that was built in the room may simply not come out whole, and knowing that before the truck arrives changes the plan rather than the day.
• Decide honestly what should not be moved. Fitted units built into a wall, and old particle board pieces that have been apart before, often do not survive the trip. Sometimes leaving or replacing is the better call.
• Take mirrors, glass shelves and glass shutters off separately and pack them apart from the frames.
• If a piece already has a problem, note it. A drawer that sticks or a shutter that sags will be blamed on the move otherwise.

2. Dismantling without wrecking the fixings

The hardware is what fails, not the wood. Screw holes in engineered board have a limited number of lives, and a move uses one of them.

• Take hardware off in order and bag it per piece, with a label. One bag per wardrobe, one per bed, taped to the piece itself if you can.
• Keep hinges and their mounting plates together, and note which shutter each came from. Modern concealed hinges are adjusted individually, so putting them back where they were saves a long alignment session.
• Take drawers out and carry them separately rather than leaving them in. Then keep each drawer with its own channel pair, because channels are handed and matched.
• Do not force anything that resists. If a joint or a panel will not come apart, it may be glued or pinned rather than screwed, and forcing it is how a carcass gets split.
• Never drag a unit across a floor. Lift it, or slide it on a blanket. Dragging is what racks a carcass so that every door and drawer in it starts to catch at the new flat.
• Know that a screw hole gets weaker each time it is used. If a screw spins when you put it back, the hole needs plugging and re-drilling rather than a fatter screw forced in.

3. On the day: wrapping, weather and lifts

Delhi adds two problems to any move: the weather, and the building.

• Wrap polished and veneered surfaces in cloth or proper packing material rather than plastic pressed straight onto the finish, especially in the monsoon, when trapped moisture marks a polish quickly.
• If you are moving in the rains, keep wooden pieces off wet floors at both ends and dry anything that got wet the same day rather than leaving it standing damp overnight.
• In summer, do not leave furniture standing in a closed truck or on an open terrace in the afternoon sun for hours. Heat and direct sun open joints and blister polish.
• Protect corners and edges, which take almost all the knocks in a lift and on a staircase turn.
• Check your society rules in advance. Many Delhi and NCR societies restrict lift use for shifting, set time windows, and want prior intimation to the RWA. Sorting that out beforehand avoids a truck waiting downstairs.
• Carry glass, mirrors and marble tops upright rather than flat, and never lean them against a wall unsupported.

4. After the move: reassemble, level, snag

Reassembly is where a move either finishes cleanly or leaves you with months of small annoyances.

• Level every unit as it goes in before you tighten anything fully. Floors are rarely flat, and a carcass standing out of level is why doors drift and drawers catch. Shim the base properly rather than adjusting hinges to compensate.
• Put hinges back on their original shutters and expect to adjust. Concealed hinges have small screws that move a shutter up and down, side to side and in and out, so a row of shutters can be brought back to even gaps in a few minutes.
• Refit drawer channels in matched pairs, level with each other. A pair set at slightly different heights makes a drawer twist and bind, as our guide on drawers that will not slide explains.
• Do not stand fitted units hard against an external wall. Leave an air gap and keep the base off the floor, which matters more in Delhi than most places because of damp walls and termites.
• Walk a snag list within the first week, while it is all still fresh: every shutter closing flush, every drawer running, nothing wobbling, no fresh scratches. Our guide on wardrobe doors that will not close covers what to do about the ones that are not right.
• Give it a season before you decide something is warped. A piece that has come from a differently ventilated flat into a new one will settle, and Delhi’s humidity swing moves wood anyway, as our tip on protecting wood from Delhi humidity explains.

If several things need attention, batch them into one carpenter visit rather than calling separately — most carry a minimum call-out, and our moving into a new flat tip covers the wider settling-in checklist.