How to Pack Bedding and Linens for Moving

Packing for a move is a tough job – one that usually takes many days, weeks, and even months to complete.

During the process of packing up your things for a move, you’ll have to tackle different packing tasks with various levels of difficulty.

For instance, packing kitchen plates and drinking glasses is much harder and trickier (time-consuming too!) than packing your books for the upcoming move.

And of course, packing furniture pieces for safe transportation can be even more challenging than you think.

Sooner or later (understand later), your detailed room-by-room packing checklist will take you to the bedroom. And when it does, you’ll need to know how to pack bedding and linens for a move too.

The good news is that packing blankets, pillows, cushions, bed sheets, towels, and comforters will be one of the easiest tasks when packing up your home for moving. Wonder why?

Soft goods are lightweight and definitely not fragile, meaning that they won’t break if you accidentally drop any of them on the floor. Also, you won’t have to worry about finding any of them broken into pieces after the move.

However, you still want to make sure your bedding and linens arrive in the new place in perfect condition: unsoiled, clean, and ready to use.

Follow these tips for packing bedding and linens for moving.

Packing supplies for packing your bedding

In order to keep your soft goods protected during the entire move – until the moment you get to unpack them safely in the new home, you’re going to need a number of packing supplies to get the job done.

Before anything else, gather the following packing materials:

• Moving boxes. You’re going to need medium and large cardboard boxes in good condition. It’s okay to use second-hand moving boxes (free moving boxes!) to pack up your bedding and linens as long as those cardboard containers are strong, clean, and dry.
• Packing paper. Use only soft packing paper that’s blank, acid-free, and ink-free (newsprint). Don’t make the mistake of using ordinary newspapers because their ink can easily damage your delicate fabrics.
• Plastic bags. Plastic bags will protect your soft goods against moisture and dirt. Also, you may be willing to invest in several vacuum storage bags that will be especially useful when packing and moving very voluminous items such as pillows, cushions, comforters, and duvets.
• Packing tape. Standard packing tape will do just fine.
• Marker. Make sure you’ve got at least one black marker ready to label the moving boxes once you’ve filled them up.

Packing Supplies You Can’t Do Without

What to know before packing bedding and linens

As you will learn in a bit, packing linens and bedding for moving is not complicated in any way and can even be viewed as a pretty straightforward task.

Nevertheless, there are a number of specifics that you’ll need to be aware of so that you can keep your soft goods protected during the house move.

Packing Timeline: What to Pack When for Moving

Pack your bedding and linens last

Packing your bedding will definitely be one of the easiest things to do when moving house so it makes sense to leave that task for last when your packing energy and motivation will be (almost) spent.

Keep in mind the correct packing order – starting from the rooms and items that are really tough to pack and ending with the rooms and things that are straightforward to wrap up and box for a move.

Another reason to leave the job of packing your bedding and linens for the last few days prior to moving day is that you should be able to tackle it all fairly quickly. Why?

That’s simply because you won’t need to spend any extra time protecting any fragile or breakable areas of your pillows, bed sheets, blankets, towels, or comforters. All of them are soft, fluffy, and downy, and your major concern will be how to create enough packing space for them rather than how to keep them from getting broken during transit.

The third and final reason why you’ll want to leave packing bedding for last is that you’ll keep using most of those bedding items right until it’s time to leave the house – a set of bed sheets, pillows, and covers for each bed in use, plus towels for the bathroom.

What to Pack First When Moving

Use your soft goods to protect fragile items

One thing to bear in mind when packing soft goods for moving is that these items work great for protecting breakable items and padding other boxes that contain extra fragile things.

Therefore, unless you own very expensive bedding and linens or ones that have never been used before, you’re encouraged to use your regular everyday blankets, towels, and bed sheets to complete a couple of critical objectives:

• protect fragile items, and
• fill in empty spaces inside the boxes to prevent any shifting inside.

Interestingly enough, the best way to pack bedding for a move is to use some of your soft bedroom items to protect some of the extra fragile and breakable things you own and plan to take with you.

How to Pack Fragile Items When Moving

Maximize space to increase packing efficiency

Since most of your bedding items will be rather voluminous, the space inside the available cardboard boxes can soon become an issue. You don’t want to spare too many containers for your linens so you’re going to have to think of some tactics to optimize packing space.

One way to do just that is to press down on your blankets, towels, and pillows as you’re arranging them in the boxes in order to let out the trapped air between the layers of fabric.

View the air inside each box as your adversary and make an effort to fill in the empty spaces as much as possible by packing the soft items closely and firmly together.

How to Pack Quickly: Pack a House in 3 Days

How to pack pillows and cushions for moving

Pillows and cushions use up a LOT of precious storage space when packed inside a cardboard box, so the best way to pack pillows and cushions for moving is to use them as padding materials.

Of course, you may not want to do that with all the pillows you own – some of them may be too expensive or too precious for you to use them that way. In such cases, you’d like to keep them properly protected all the way to the destination home.

• INSERT each pillow and cushion into a plastic bag for extra protection from moisture and dirt. Feel free to use large trash bags for that purpose as long as those bags are perfectly clean (brand-new) and strong (durable) enough. Use a bit of tape to secure the bags and keep them from opening.
• ARRANGE carefully the pillows and cushions into large cardboard boxes that have been pre-lined with soft packing paper. Remember the packing rule: big boxes for lightweight items, small boxes for heavy items.
• PRESS DOWN on each new pillow you position inside a box to remove the trapped air inside the container and free up more storage space.
• FILL UP a big cardboard box with as many pillows and cushions as it will fit, place one sheet of clean packing paper on the top, then close the flaps and seal the box shut with tape.
• LABEL the moving box accordingly. Write down PILLOWS to know where to find those bedding items on the first day after moving in.

Do’s & Don’ts When Moving a Queen Size Bed

What’s the best way to pack pillows and cushions for a move? Be creative!

• PACK pillows and cushions into empty drawers to save valuable space. Before you do it, wrap the bedding items into clean plastic bags as described above.
• PACK cushions and pillows on the bottom of wardrobe boxes to optimize the space inside those extra-tall containers. 
• USE your everyday pillows and cushions to provide excellent padding for breakable items such as kitchen plates, drinking glasses, wine glasses, and other highly breakable items.
  Why use costly bubble wrap to fill in the empty spaces inside cardboard boxes when you can fit there a soft pillow or two?

How to Pack Pillows for Moving

How to pack bed sheets for moving

Packing bed sheets for a move is pretty straightforward – they don’t take that much space and can be easily arranged neatly to save packing space.

• LINE a medium box with soft packing paper to create an initial protective layer.
• FOLD your bed sheets carefully to minimize the total volume of the bedding. You may be tempted to just toss your bed sheets into a random box to save time but that’ll make things much worse later on.
• ARRANGE the bed sheets into the pre-lined box as flat as possible to optimize the space inside.
• PLACE one final sheet of packing paper on the top when you’re done with a box.
• CLOSE the box and tape it securely.
• LABEL the moving box accordingly. Write down BED SHEETS to know your way around when you reach the new residence.

What’s the best way to pack bed sheets for a move?

Old bed sheets or ones that are in circulation prior to the move should be used to fill empty spaces inside cardboard boxes that contain fragile items. That way, you’ll save packing space and save on extra padding materials such as packing paper or Bubble wrap.

How to Pack a Mattress for Moving

How to pack blankets for moving

You may already know that professional movers use moving blankets (aka furniture blankets) all the time in their work.

That is because thick protective blankets can be very versatile during the packing process and offer a great level of protection for any fragile items wrapped in them.

• PLACE clean sheets of packing paper along the bottom and sides of a medium or large cardboard box.
• FOLD your blankets carefully as opposed to just stuffing them inside the container to “save” time.
• ARRANGE the blankets neatly inside the cardboard box and make sure you use efficiently every bit of packing space inside.
• POSITION one final layer of packing paper on top and close the box.
• TAPE the carton shut and label it as BLANKETS. Easy, right?

What’s the best way to pack blankets for a move? That’s easy – don’t pack them!

Instead, use all the blankets you have in your home to wrap furniture pieces for extra protection or wrap around various glass items or porcelain items that are at great risk of ending up broken during a house move.

Clever Packing Tips and Tricks

How to pack towels for moving

Packing towels for moving is not a task you should be worried in any way – it’s as simple as folding the towels one by one and stacking them up inside a large cardboard box.

• USE clean wrapping paper to line a medium or large cardboard box.
• MAKE sure the towels you’re about to pack are perfectly dry before you place them inside the moving box.
• FOLD your towels neatly and stack them firmly inside to use effectively all the storage space inside the container.
• PLACE packing paper on top, close the box and label it accordingly.

Packing towels for a move can’t get any easier than that, can it? But here’s the tricky part: towels do make excellent padding and filling materials, so you’d be better off using them instead of costly Bubble wrap whenever possible.

What’s more, you’re going to need to put aside some towels for the essentials boxes you’re expected to pack for each family member before you move out.

How to Pack a Bathroom When Moving

How to pack comforters and duvets for moving

Comforters and duvets will be the most voluminous soft goods you’ll have in your home, so packing and storage space can become a serious issue. That’s why the best way to pack comforters for a move is to pack them up inside special vacuum bags in order to reduce greatly their volume.

If you choose to pack your comforters, duvets, and quilts into large cardboard boxes, you’ll be forced, at least in most cases, to use one big box for one piece of voluminous soft item and that’s definitely not the most efficient packing advice you can get. Unless you have no other choice, that is.

Vacuum storage bags – also known as compression bags – have a valve on the side of the bag where you fit a vacuum hose or a hand pump which will effectively suck the air from the plastic bag. With no air inside, the voluminous bedding items will be shrunk greatly, conveniently compact to fit into much smaller spaces.

Vacuum seal bags are an excellent investment and can be used to reduce the volume of other soft goods in your house too such as thick winter coats and jackets. When packing bedding for a move, those vacuum bags can work their shrinking magic on your large pillows and cushions as well.

As you can see, packing bedding and linens for moving is not a complicated task by any means. However, it will still require time from you – time you may not happen to have, especially if you’re organizing an emergency last-minute move.

In that case, hire experienced professional packers to give you a hand.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire Packers?