The most common stereotype of furniture movers involves of burly fellows who lift refrigerators and pianos and carry them down three flights of stairs. Often they are pegged as not being terribly careful with your cherished heirlooms and keepsakes, bashing into walls while remaining blissfully unaware of the scratches and dents amassing on Grandma’s curio cabinet or that eighteenth century rocking chair. For the most part, however, a reputable furniture mover will handle your beloved items as if they were his own.
The furniture mover does move furniture, but that is only a part of his job description. The vast majority of furniture movers work for moving and storage companies, and thus are dealing with an entire home’s worth of furniture, appliances, and boxes. While a furniture mover will come to your home to relocate individual items – such as moving a billiard table from the upper floor of a home to the basement – the largest percentage of his tasks revolve around the packing, inventory, loading, transporting, and unloading of your worldly possessions. It is a job that is neither easy nor simple.
Before a furniture mover ever lifts a single table, he will go through your home and apply numbered stickers to each and every packed box, appliance, and piece of furniture. These items will be written on an inventory list. The movers will keep one copy, and another will be given to the customer. After the customer reviews the list and signs off on it, the moving process begins. In some cases, if the customer has paid for the extra service, the movers will have packed the boxes themselves, carefully padding all items to avoid the possibility of breakage.
Then the moving begins, with the furniture mover wrapping thick blankets around any items that might be scratched or scraped. All items are put on a truck, and securely tied and strapped so they don’t jostle in transit. In most cases the furniture mover will also be the truck driver, transporting your goods across the street, across town, or across the country. Upon arrival at the intended destination, the movers will unload the truck and carry the items into your new quarters.
At this point, the moving process operates in reverse. Both the customer and movers mark each numbered item off their inventory sheets as they are removed from the truck. If all goes well, and it usually does, everything from silverware to double-door freezers will arrive on time and intact.