Moving artwork in Dubai is the part of the job most people think about last and should plan first. A framed print, a tall hallway mirror and a glass dining top are all flat, heavy in the wrong places and easy to break with one careless lean against a wall. None of them fits a standard carton either, so they need their own materials and their own place in the truck.
This is how our crew packs and carries them, from the corner protectors that go on first to the wall fixings at the other end. Some of it you can do yourself in the week before. The oversized pieces, heavy old frames and anything with a raised paint surface are better left to the people who will carry them.
Measure, Photograph and List Before Anything Is Wrapped
Our surveyor walks the walls with you and writes down every piece: height, width and the depth of the frame. Those three numbers decide the size of carton or crate, and whether a piece will go in the lift at all. A tall mirror that clears a doorway at an angle may still refuse the lift car, and that is better known when the quote is written than on moving day.
Photograph the front and the back of each piece in good light, and note any chip or hairline crack that is already there. The back also tells us how it hung: wire, D rings, a cleat or two brackets at a fixed spacing. That saves guessing at the new home.
- Height, width and frame depth for every piece
- Glass, acrylic, bare canvas or an open frame
- Existing chips, cracks and loose joints, photographed
- Which wall each piece is going on at the new home
Corner Protectors, Mirror Cartons and the Order the Layers Go On
Corners go on first. Foam or card protectors take the one knock a flat piece is most likely to get, because a frame almost always lands on a corner. Over them goes tissue or glassine against the surface, then bubble wrap with the bubbles facing outwards, then card on each face so nothing can press through. Tape holds the wrapping to itself, never to the frame, the glass or the paint.
A mirror carton is a telescopic box that slides out to the size of the piece. Framed mirrors, large prints and glazed pictures each get one, with the gaps filled so nothing slides inside. Where the glass is not laminated we tape a cross over it first, so a crack holds together rather than travelling.
- Corner protectors before any wrapping
- Tissue or glassine next to the surface, never tape
- Bubble wrap bubbles outwards, card on both faces
- A telescopic mirror carton sized to the piece
- Marked on both faces and carried upright
When a Piece Needs a Wooden Crate
Cartons cover most of a home. A crate is for the few things a box cannot answer: an oversized canvas, a heavy carved or gilt frame, a stone or metal sculpture, a mirrored panel from a wall unit, or anything that cannot be replaced. We build it to the measurements of the piece, with foam and internal blocks holding the work so it never touches bare timber.
Crating also makes sense when a piece is not going straight onto a new wall. Anything bound for a shipping container, a renovation that runs long or a few months in storage is safer in a box of its own than leaning in a stack. Our removal service in Dubai covers that specialist side of a move, including jobs where we crate and load and someone else drives.
Glass Table Tops Travel Upright, Never Flat
A glass top laid flat in a truck takes the full flex of the floor. It is held only at the edges, so the middle moves with every ramp and speed bump across town, and a single grain of grit underneath becomes a pressure point. On edge the same sheet is far stronger, so the top travels standing, in a padded A frame or strapped against a blanketed side wall with the load built around it.
Getting it off the base is a two person job at least, often with suction handles. A chipped edge is where a break starts weeks later, so edges are padded before the blanket goes on. The pads, brackets and screws come off into a labelled bag, taped to the underside of the base itself.
Heat and Sun Do More Harm Than the Road
Dubai adds heat to every one of these decisions. Air conditioning switched off in an empty flat, a crate standing in a sunlit lobby, an hour in a closed vehicle in the afternoon: all of it is harder on a painting than the drive. Varnish and oil paint soften, canvas slackens and tightens again, and polythene pressed against a warm surface can leave a mark that will not lift off.
So flat pieces and crates load last and come off first, the vehicle stays shut, and nothing sits on a hot floor or against the bulkhead. If your move falls in the hotter months, our guide to moving in the Dubai summer explains how we shift the start time and the order of the load.
Through the Building: Lifts, Loading Bays and Stairwells
Flat pieces are where building access bites. A two metre crate can clear the loading bay and the corridor, then meet a lift car nowhere near deep enough to take it, even on the diagonal. We measure the service lift at both ends, book the slot, and put the oversized pieces first in the sequence. In towers around Business Bay and Jumeirah Lake Towers that slot is also the permit window, so there is no room to improvise.
If the only route is the stairs, the piece goes face inwards with a person at each end and a third on the turns, one landing at a time. In the truck, flat pieces stand on edge in a row against a padded side and are tied off, with cartons packed around them. A mirror never travels under a stack of boxes, however well it is wrapped.
Hanging It Again at the New Home
Walls are not all the same here. Blockwork and concrete need a masonry bit and the right plug, while the gypsum partitions in many apartments hold a light picture but not a tall mirror unless the fixing reaches something solid behind the board. We check what the wall is made of before drilling, and if you are unsure about a particular wall, ask building management first, because some restrict work on shared or structural walls.
A heavy mirror wants two fixings, a level and the top edge pulled in tight so it cannot creep forward. As a starting point, put the centre of a piece about 145 to 150 centimetres off the floor, and lower it over a sofa or console so it reads with the furniture. Keep paper and canvas off a wall in direct sun and away from the wall under an air conditioning vent.
If your move has pieces you would rather not wrap yourself, request a free quote or call 058 135 7375 and tell the surveyor what is on the walls. Crating, materials and the hanging at the other end are then shown as their own lines on one fixed written price.
