Furniture Shifting

One sofa or the whole flat

A lot of the furniture jobs we get are not moves at all. Somebody has bought a dining set off a neighbour who is leaving, or a bed needs to go from a parent's house in Jayanagar to a rented flat in Bellandur, or a couple is separating one household into two and only the furniture is going. None of that needs a full house shift, and pricing it as one would be silly.

So furniture shifting is booked by the piece or by the vehicle, whichever suits the job. A single wardrobe out of a fourth-floor flat is one kind of problem, eleven pieces spread over three rooms is another, and we quote them differently.

Taking it apart is usually the safe option

Most large furniture is easier to move in parts, and it is nearly always safer. Beds come apart at the frame, wardrobes lose their doors and shelves, dining tables lose their legs, and a modular wardrobe that was built inside the room is going to have to come apart because it never came through the door assembled in the first place.

The crew that dismantles a piece is the crew that puts it back together, and the fittings travel in a labelled bag taped to the piece they belong to. It sounds like a small thing until you have watched somebody hunt for six cam bolts on a Sunday evening.

Some pieces we would rather not take apart, and we will say so. Old teak and rosewood joinery, anything with an original mortise-and-tenon frame, and glass-topped tables that sit in a rebate all travel better wrapped whole if there is any way to carry them out. That decision gets made at the survey, when we can see the piece and the staircase, not on the day.

The doorway, the lift and the turn on the landing

Furniture jobs are won or lost on access rather than distance. A three-seater sofa that will not go into the service lift has to come down the stairs, and if the stairwell turns tight at each landing the crew needs to know that before it is standing there holding one end. We measure the awkward pieces against the lift car and the doorways at the survey and plan the route out of the building around whatever will not fit.

Bangalore high-rises add their own layer to this. Move-in slots, a gate pass for the vehicle, a refundable lift deposit at some associations, and in a few buildings furniture movement is simply not allowed after six in the evening. We handle that paperwork with the facility office ahead of the date so nobody is negotiating at the gate with a sofa on the pavement.

Wrapping, and what it is protecting against

Everything gets wrapped before it leaves the room. Upholstery goes into stretch film so it does not pick up grease or rain, polished surfaces get a foam layer under the film because film on bare polish can mark it, corners and edges get separate protection, and glass and mirror travel flat between boards. Rain is the reason for a lot of that wrapping, a monsoon shower while the truck is being loaded will ruin a fabric sofa faster than any amount of handling.

Condition is noted before loading, and again when the piece is set down and reassembled at the other end. Optional transit insurance on declared value is there if you want cover on a piece that would be expensive or impossible to replace.