Dish Storage: How to Pack Up Your Kitchen

When you’re preparing for a big move, kitchenware can be a tricky part of your home to pack. Dishes tend to be made of breakable materials, and while some kitchenware is made to stack, other pieces are more difficult to consolidate in storage. Dishes can also take up a great deal of room in your home if you have a lot of extras, or if you’re boxing them up for a move. Instead of filling your home with boxes of dishes, consider using self storage for your dish storage needs. You can keep your dishes in storage for as long as you need to get your home packed and moved to a new place, then unpack them when you’re ready to set up your new kitchen. You can also use a storage unit to keep any extra dishes stored safely while you save space in your home. Read on for our tips on how to best store dishes in self storage.

Clean Your Dishes

Before putting anything in storage, you should ensure that it’s free of dirt and germs. Running your dishes through the dishwasher one more time before packing them will reduce the chance of finding unpleasant surprises when you take them back out of storage. Especially because dishes can have food residue on them, they are susceptible to growing mold and mildew or attracting pests to your storage unit. Always make sure the dishes you put in storage are clean.

Organize Your Dish Storage

When packing for a move especially, organizing your items makes your life much easier in the long run. When you pack your dishes up, take everything out of your cabinets and organize it. Then you can easily label boxes by dish type and keep them organized in your storage unit. Also be sure to label your dishes as fragile so anyone helping you move knows to be careful. Avoid stacking anything heavy on top of breakable dishes.

Protect Fragile Dishes

Any dishes that are made of porcelain, ceramic, glass, or other fragile materials should be invidivudally wrapped in storage. This requires bubble wrap, packing paper, or special dish protectors for your dish storage. It may be time consuming when packing, but wrapping each dish greatly lowers the odds that you will pull them out of storage broken. Besides just wrapping the outside of your dishes, make sure to stuff the hollow spaces of glasses and other containers with packing paper as well. Once again, avoid stacking heavy items on top of your fragile dishes as this can cause them to break in storage as well.

Invest in the Proper Boxes

While cardboard boxes are a perfectly fine option for dish storage, they can be a bit difficult to pack due to the odd shape of some dishes. You can find specialty boxes meant specifically for dishes like glasses or other oddly shaped kitchenware that will protect them better. Keeping the original packaging may also help you with your dish storage needs. Whatever you do, make sure your dishes are properly packed to avoid breakage in storage.

Consider Climate-Controlled Dish Storage

Ceramic and glass dishes are more resistant to heat and humidity damages than many other items that may go in storage. For this reason, you could certainly get away with putting them in storage that isn’t climate-controlled. However, if you are storing your dishes in cardboard boxes, the boxes may be more susceptible to damage from high humidity. Unregulated humidity may also increase the odds of mold and mildew growing in your storage unit, which no one wants on their dishes. Additionally, any extreme, rapid temperature changes, although unlikely, could potentially cause ceramics or glass to break. If you would prefer to stay on the extra safe side, climate-control may be a good investment for your dish storage, especially if you will be storing other items with your dishes.