How to pack pillows for moving

The process of packing for a move will take you from room to room, starting from the premises that are really difficult and tricky to sort and pack – all the storage areas in the home such as the garage, basement, attic, spare rooms, walk-in closets, etc., and ending with the bedroom – the room that seems fairly straightforward to pack up.

And when you do get to packing your bedroom when moving to another home, you may be unsure how to pack the pillows due to their large size and volume.

After all, one pillow can easily fill up an entire moving box, meaning that you may need to have roughly 8-10 large cardboard boxes just to pack up your sleeping pillows, without even counting the cushions. Is the math just wrong in this case?

Read on to learn your viable options when packing pillows for moving – do you really need so many boxes just for your sleeping pillows? Or is there a packing trick that can help you pack all your bed pillows while saving you valuable storage space at the same time?

Here’s the best way to pack pillows for moving.

Why packing pillows can be both easy and hard

Packing pillows when moving does seem like an easy task compared to, say, packing kitchen dishes, and in most cases, it is just that – straightforward as it can be.

The good news is that pillows and cushions are not fragile in any way, which means that they won’t break if accidentally dropped on the floor. They might get dirty, yes, but cannot actually get broken – a fact that will make your pillow packing chore even easier.

Also, there’s no real danger for your bed linen pieces when they are being transported to the new house – shocks and vibrations won’t affect them in any way. On the contrary, pillows, cushions, blankets, towels, comforters, and sheets are excellent shock absorbers just because they belong to the soft goods category.

The bad news is that pillows do take a lot of storage space due to their extra volume. In general, soft goods also tend to trap plenty of air when packed inside cardboard boxes, and that’s especially true for pillows and cushions.

Ultimately, you don’t wish to use most of your large boxes to hold only your pillows, so you’ll need to come up with some good space-saving packing techniques.

Good to know: How to pack a bedroom for moving

Get the necessary packing supplies

To pack your pillows and the rest of the bedding for a move, you’re going to need these packing materials in advance:

• Cardboard boxes. Get hold of several large or extra-large moving boxes. Bear in mind that pillows are large but also lightweight, meaning that the big boxes you pack them in won’t get heavy at all.
• Wrapping paper. You won’t need much packing paper when packing pillows for moving. In fact, you’ll only need the soft paper to line up the box bottoms from the inside for extra protection.
• Plastic bags. The usage of large trash bags (brand-new, of course) is a good way to keep your pillows perfectly protected against dust and moisture.
• Vacuum bags. A great option can be to pack your pillows in vacuum seal bags to reduce greatly their volume. Read on to find out more about this clever packing trick.
• Tape. Just use the packing tape you’ve already bought – it should do just fine.
• Black marker. To label the large boxes containing your pillows. Needless to say, your pillows will be one of the first things you unpack when you reach the new home.

See also: What to unpack first when you move into a new home

Sort out your bed pillows

The very first step to packing your pillows when moving across the country is to take a closer look at each pillow and see if it’s worth the trouble of moving it to the new place, wherever that new place may be.

Some of the bed pillows may be too worn out or even torn in places, with their stuffing poking out. Other sleeping pillows may have been patched up too many times. And what about that pillow that you never liked due to being either too thick or too thin for you to sleep comfortably on it?

A house move gives you the perfect opportunity to get rid of the pillows that you should have thrown years ago and to purchase new, better ones after the move is over.

Pack your pillows in moving boxes

The most common way to pack pillows for moving is to place them in large cardboard boxes.

• Line a few sheets of clean packing paper on the bottom of a big packing box.
• Place a pillow on the bottom after you’re made sure it’s 100% dry. Even slightly damp bedding can cause a big mess when packed as it is.
• Position another pillow over the first one, then press down onto it to compact it as much as possible and to let out the air that’s trapped between the two soft items.
• Add another pillow if there’s still enough space left in the box. If not, place a couple of paper sheets on the top for extra protection.
• Close the box and tape it shut.
• Take a marker pen and label the box appropriately – PILLOWS, BEDROOM.

That was easy, wasn’t it?

The only issue is that pillows are first-class space filling and padding materials, so you may actually choose to pack them a bit differently.

Good advice: How to pack bedding for moving

Pack your pillows in plastic bags

The second most common way to pack bed pillows is to insert them into clean and strong trash bags. In fact, this may well be the easiest and fastest packing task in the entire packing checklist.

• Prepare brand-new garbage bags that are sturdy and large enough to hold your pillows.
• Insert a pillow inside the plastic bag. Again, make sure it’s completely dry.
• Close the trash bag with one long strip of tape or several much shorter ones.

Now, once you’ve placed your pillows in plastic bags to keep them protected against dust, dirt, and moisture, you’ve got several good options:

• Pack pillows into wardrobe boxes. If you’re using wardrobe boxes to pack your expensive designer clothes so that they don’t wrinkle, then consider placing a few pillows on the bottom of the wardrobe box to use up the free space. Of course, those pillows will need to be plastic-wrapped first.
• Pack pillows into boxes with breakables. As mentioned above, soft and fluffy pillows make for great padding materials so you can definitely use that to your advantage. When packing a box with extra-fragile items, leave enough space on the top for a single pillow that’s already been wrapped in a plastic bag.
• Pack pillows into drawers. When moving a desk or a chest of drawers, then do consider packing pillows into their drawers to save space. Of course, you can’t do that if the drawers are full of clothes or other items, but hauling empty drawers to a new home can be a waste of good storage space.

Did you know: How to use garbage bags for packing and moving

Pack your pillows in vacuum bags

A smart way to pack pillows when moving is to shrink down their volume in an effort to save critical space when packing for a move. And how do you do it? By using vacuum seal bags, of course.

Vacuum storage bags are not cheap but they are usually well worth the investment. All you have to do is fill in a vacuum bag with soft pillows and then get the air out, thus reducing greatly the volume of your soft goods. Some manufacturers claim that their products can reduce the original volume by as much as 80%!

Whether that promised shrinking power is actually true or not, one thing is certain – your sleeping pillows will take much less space when packed and moved into airtight plastic bags.   

Read also: How to pack to save space when moving