Hi Sarah - you’re right to be alerted to possible movers’ damage. We’ve had three cross country moves. Two were excellent, one not so much. The best ones did put heavy paper and /or those padded moving blankets on the floors to protect our wood. Well done. I was right on top those people moving the big stuff in, making sure they were careful. Some walls were scuffed but easily cleaned. What I will suggest is have at least one other person with you on moving day. It’s a complete rush of signing off on boxes, directing, placing boxes in the right rooms, etc. I did it myself the first time in a 4,500 sq ft home and it was overwhelming to say the least. Luckily the outcome was great. The last move was horrible. They were just bad, clumsy, careless movers. It was a Smaller home but I just couldn’t keep up with all that’s going on. Don’t sign anything until you’re satisfied! So - I would mostly suggest having someone else with you to coordinate all the people moving and placing, etc.

Agree with Chispa.

Ram board is pretty inexpensive at HD or Lowe’s - something like $40 for a roll - well worth the $ and the piece of mind. Hadn’t thought of pushing multiple boxes around at once as chispa said - but that’s so true!

Why don't you talk to the movers and ask how they plan to protect the walls and floors and if they're insured for damage. Careful movers will be fine, others not so much.

When i moved the moving company used the plastic sheets on the floors and sponge paddings on the corner of the walls while lifting heavy furniture,

Make sure they are using proper materials if they are dragging or pushing heavy items....Our appliance installers damaged our kitchen floor. It's most obvious right in front of the fridge [they forgot to put the wheels down and pushed it across]. I was so upset. Luckily they are not shiny so it's not super obvious. The company did NOTHING for me when I complained. Now 1.5 years later it still bothers me but t I was never stressed about little issues in the floor after that.

Consider reusable neoprene floor runners for critical areas.

Be sure your contractor leaves paint for touchups.

Sarah - What a timely question! Our move will hopefully be in less than a month. Most of our things have been in boxes for almost 16 months. Very nervous about the movers dinging everything! But as Connecticut Yankeeeee mentioned, we have good movers that put pads down on the floors. I was also going to recommend the RAM board. Much better than paper. And I think you can purchase corner foam for your doorways.

chispa - Thank you for the box/floor scratching warning. I am guilty of doing that. For moving furniture around, I always use inexpensive washcloths to put under the legs. Tried those mover thingies, but they slide off some times.

tntwalter - The same thing happened to us 15 years ago in that brand new house. I was livid, but nothing was done. The marks eventually disappeared. I have not been able to look under the RAM board at my new home. The fridge and other appliances were delivered two weeks ago. I continually stressed to my builder that I wanted the floors protected and countertops protected.

worthy - Thanks for that tip!

maddielee - Another good tip!

Connecticut Yankeeeee also has a point about having someone helping. Since our moves usually take 2-3 days, I like to have someone at the old place, and the new place at all times. Several years ago, a mysterious fire started at our rental as we were in the middle of a move to our brand new home. Long story, but we lost a lot of things...either by being damaged or stolen. As anxious as I have been during all the months of building of our new home, I am just as anxious about the actual move.

And if you have pets, board them or send them to a friends house!!!

Another thing to protect is your exterior entry to the house. We have had movers chip off brick steps, etc.. with their moving ramps.

Just got a call to repair a buffet cracked by movers. $1,500.00 and contract with the owner, not the mover or their insurance company. No customer satisfaction guarantee either.

I thought I'd reply to my own thread here for anybody who wants to read it in the future. First, the movers were awful and had had five hours of sleep. Although they were mostly very nice, they got more and more sloppy as the ten-hour day wore on, and so only half of this is their fault personally. The moving company should not have sent two guys to empty 30k lbs of stuff from a moving truck when they had done the same thing for some other family 600 miles away the night before.

We bought ramboard as well as ramboard tape. Per some YouTube video I watched, we put painters tape down on the floor and then taped the ramboard tape onto that instead of onto the floor directly. This was kind of a hassle, and I don't know if it was actually necessary, but it worked fine. The ramboard mostly stayed put. We created paths to the major areas of the house with that and I was glad we did. There was no floor damage.

We also layered 2-3 folded moving blankets on the front step so protect the exterior tile. This was incredibly important, because they carelessly rammed the hand truck wheels into it every single time to get it up the front step. I couldn't believe how hard they hit it every time – it was loud even through the blankets! – and I was very glad we had the folded moving blankets there. I did have to reposition them several times throughout the day.

I couldn't come up with a good solution in time for protecting the interior corners that didn't require installation and/or drilling something into the wall, so we just crossed our fingers. They rammed a hand truck into one corner and it took a 1x2" chunk out of the drywall, but everything else was good.

We have an interior full-lite glass door in one room, and they almost shattered it by backing some furniture into it. It was only through luck that my husband was there to say "wait! stop!" and prevent a disaster.

We also arranged the small amount of furniture already present to block access to areas that we cared about a lot. We moved living room furniture and boxes to prevent them getting anywhere near the TV, and we also blocked off the kitchen so they didn't have to navigate boxes and furniture around the island and the rest of the kitchen's many right angles.

Looking back, my advice to myself would be to find 2-3 people who can just sit in the high-risk areas all day and keep an eye on things. The movers were definitely more careful when someone was sitting in an area, so if we'd had someone stationed by the tight areas, that probably would have helped.

All in all we didn't have too much damage, though what we had was indeed annoying, and the ramboard was definitely 100% worth the cost and trouble to set up.

Good advice and tips Sarah! Moving is stressful enough without the added hassle of worrying about your new house getting destroyed. Ram board is the best!

Thanks for the update Sarah and glad you were prepared. I like your idea of blocking things off. Moving is very fast paced and nerve wracking! I agree that having a few people help you is a great piece of advice. The other advice: have adequate insurance (usually costs extra); handle the absolute irreplaceables yourself; don’t sign anything unless you’re sure. Since my movers really rushed me this last time and insisted I sign before I checked everything, I handwrote a note on the moving inventory list stating I had not checked everything and I’m signing under duress. I believe I did have a grave period of time to report breakage or damage- but I wanted to be covered as much as possible.

DD is moving into her first home she's ever owned this month. We will tell her what was written here and stand guard where she needs us to. Thank you for leaving your message about your experience Sarah! I did a search but have trouble finding anything on this website. This was a timely spam ;-)

@sushipup2 Are you aware you can flag someone yourself? Click on the little flag on the lower right corner.

And in most cases these folks seem legit. And when you say "Please flag" who is that directed to?

Architectrunnerguy, it takes more than one person to flag posts and really make them disappear. I always flag, but it takes a village. And what might seem legit to the casual reader is often (usually) a pattern that's repeated by many bots, many names, daily.

In the case I mentioned above, "Kasius Chambers" posted a vague comment then came back a few days later to edit the post to add spam. I will remove my call-out now that the post has been pulled.

Hi folks - Sushipup is fabulous at identifying the spammers. They have a standard MO - which is to post some vague response and then they later come back and add a link to spam.

The board overlords have asked us all to flag spam when we see it. Were Sushi not basically a one person spam fighter I do think the boards would be overrun with their garbage.

Sushipup - I truly appreciate your efforts. I know you've saved us on a few other forums from a whole lot of garbage.