Everyone has at least one dresser in their apartment. You’ve got to put your clothes somewhere. Typically, like most bedroom furniture, dressers are both large and heavy. You have these two elements working against it when you decide it’s time to move them yourself.
Yes, the more hands-on an item the easier to move, but grabbing a friend to hold up one end while you handle the other isn’t always possible. Neither is the luxury of hiring professional movers to do the job for you.
Simply sliding an entire dresser across the floor isn’t usually a good idea, so you need to know how to handle large or heavy furniture safely. This goes beyond the basics of always making sure you can see where you’re going, lifting with your legs and keeping your body straight.
Assuming you can’t hire experienced furniture movers to handle heavy furniture, here’s how to move a heavy dresser all by yourself.
Prepare yourself for moving heavy furniture
Before you even think of moving that bedroom furniture around, you need to prepare yourself and your home. Start by ensuring there’s a path from where your dresser is now to where it needs to end up. If there’s anything in the way, clear that out first. You need enough space to safely maneuver.
Next, measure any doorways your heavy load will have to get through. Make sure the dresser will fit. If you’re heading to a moving truck, don’t forget to measure the front door as well.
Lastly, pick your clothes carefully. You’ll need closed-toe shoes for sure to protect your feet, but you also want shoes with a no-slip grip on the bottom to keep you sturdy for dealing with heavy objects of any kind. Your outfit should consist of light and loose clothing; anything less is likely to get ripped, torn or stretched when in the throes of heavy lifting.
Adding work gloves to your furniture moving ensemble will not only protect your hands but prevent any sweat from weakening your grip on your furniture.
Protect your furniture and your home
It’s relatively easy for heavy furniture to do some serious damage to your home, and that’s why professional movers will typically wrap large furniture with furniture blankets and lay thick plastic wrap on the floor when moving you out.
You may not have the right moving equipment, but you can improvise.
To protect your furniture, floors and walls from bumps, scratches and other damage, take the time to cover your dresser in a sheet or blanket before you move it. Secure the cover with packing tape.
To protect your hardwood floors, you can look into getting furniture pads to go under your dresser or simply use a flat piece of cardboard. You should have a lot of that laying around if you’re about to move to a new house anyway.
When confronting tight spaces, or maneuvering on a delicate surface, go slowly. Make frequent stops to check nothing is scraping against a wall, you still have a barrier between the furniture and the floor and you’re still in control of where the dresser is going.
Review the proper lifting technique
One more piece to consider before moving a heavy dresser is whether you know how to properly lift it. Hopefully, your strategy for moving it solo means you aren’t actually picking it up, but even lifting one corner to adjust it requires a good form.
Proper lifting technique protects your back and keeps your body safe while you’re holding something heavy. Key points to remember include:
- Start with your feet facing the heavy object
- Squat to lift rather than kneeling down
- Use your legs to do the work as you stand
- Maintain the natural curve of your back as you lift
- Avoid any twisting movements while holding the heavy item
This is a good practice to remember when dealing with any furniture items that sit on the heavier side of the scale. It’s also important when moving individual boxes around.
How to move a heavy dresser
Carrying furniture, when it’s smaller and lighter, is easy. You can safely lift a furniture piece like this and walk it out to the moving truck all on your own. Heavy furniture is more complicated and requires some additional moving tools, but moving it doesn’t mean you need the help of another set of hands.
1. Begin by taking it apart (sort of)
While you’ll never make a dresser feel light, anything you can remove from it does make it lighter and easier to deal with. This is true for any heavy furniture piece, so breaking down what you can is always a good tip.
For a dresser, this could mean taking off the dresser top if that’s possible, separating a large mirror from the furniture piece if there is one or taking those dresser drawers out completely. You can leave all your clothes inside dresser drawers but carry them separately to wherever the rest of the dresser will end up. You can then slide them back into the dresser and seal them closed with painter’s tape so they don’t accidentally slide out while on the moving truck.
Don’t put anything else back onto the dresser though. Instead, use the proper packing materials to keep it all separate. For example, a dresser mirror should get wrapped up with bubble wrap, placed between two pieces of cardboard then wrapped like a present in packing paper. Use packing tape to keep your mirror secure and make sure you label it as fragile.
2. Create a little give with furniture sliders
One of the best tricks for moving furniture is to give it the ability to glide across the floor. Furniture sliders let you do this, using plastic or rubber squares. Putting the sliders underneath the corners of a heavy piece of furniture lets you push the piece with ease.
You can find furniture sliders at your local hardware store, and there are different types for both hardwood floors and carpets, so this strategy works on all flooring types.
If you do end up needing an alternative to sliders and are only moving objects on an actual floor, bedspreads, towels and even plastic container covers will work the same way. The only caveat here is you’ll need to push the furniture, you can’t pull it.
3. Move the heavy dresser using a furniture dolly
Furniture dollies are different than hand trucks. The latter is what you’ll often see when hiring movers. They’ll pull it out of the moving truck, stack a pile of boxes on it and wheel it right up the truck’s ramp.
A moving dolly is actually a flat platform of wood or metal. It has four wheels on the bottom that swivel for easy maneuvering around tight corners. For all its simplicity, a dolly can move up to 1,000 pounds of heavy furniture.
To load a furniture item onto a moving dolly on your own, first, make sure all the wheels are locked. You don’t want it to accidentally roll away from you mid-lift. Next, lift one side of the dresser and angle it onto the dolly. Go to the other side next, lift, and make sure the piece is balanced. If you’re dealing with a longer dresser, you might need two dollies, one under each end. Once secure, push it slowly so the furniture doesn’t slip off.
Although you can buy a furniture dolly from any hardware store, some moving companies will rent the equipment to you. This is probably more cost-effective since it’s not a tool you’ll use very often on average.
4. Add some wheels
Another useful piece of moving equipment designed for heavy furniture is furniture wheels. These only work for solid pieces of furniture so don’t use them with a floppy mattress or anything that doesn’t have a firm bottom.
Instead of being an entire platform, you have to lift your dresser onto, furniture moving wheels consist of a set of casters you attach to your furniture. This does require some hardware and the use of your tools, but once attached, you can quietly roll your dresser right out of the house.
In order to attach your own sliders to your dresser, start by tilting it on its side. Then, attach the wheels to the bottom and set them upright. Leave the wheels on if you’ll need them again to situate your dresser in your new home, but make sure to put the dresser back on its side within the moving vehicle. That way it won’t accidentally roll into anything else in transit.
Since this strategy also has you shifting the dresser’s position so much, it’s a good idea to wrap the piece up with furniture blankets and secure some bubble wrap on the fragile edges at each corner.
5. Try an uplifting strategy
Perhaps the coolest device to move heavy furniture has the low-key name of furniture lifter. It almost looks like a tire jack, but for your stuff. The reason it looks like this is because it’s essentially how it functions.
A furniture lifter typically comes with four sliders, a jack and lever. The jack raises the furniture enough to slide the pads underneath and then you can push the dresser where it needs to go. With this option, you never even have to partially lift the furniture to get the sliders under it.
If there are stairs
If you find that it’s up to you to move a heavy dresser downstairs to the ground floor of your home, don’t stress. You can do this too, but you will absolutely need a second person to manage this safely.
Ideal positioning down a flight of stairs puts one person below the furniture and one person above. The stronger one of the two of you belongs at the bottom, but without both people, you risk dangerously sliding a very heavy object down a flight of stairs. That’s not good for anyone or anything.
Take it nice and slow and make sure you’ve wrapped things up with moving blankets. You can even put an extra one directly on the stairs to make the sliding process easier. All furniture should be taken down on its side to ensure nothing catches on the steps.
Moving other heavy furniture
While all the strategies that make it possible for your to move a dresser alone will work with any piece of heavy furniture, there are a few other things to know.
- When moving a chair, turn it sideways into an ‘L’ so you can hook the chair through any doorways or around corners. Point the back of the chair toward the opening first then you can curl it through.
- When moving a heavy couch, you won’t be able to carry it horizontally through a doorway yourself. To make it work, stand couches on their end so it faces up (after you’re sure it will clear the door) and push through the door. You can lay a rug underneath to protect the floor.
- Ideally a two-person device, you may also see a mattress sling advertised as a way to move your mattress. The great thing about this is it gives your mattress handles which transforms an item notoriously hard to move into something you can actually hold onto.
There are also additional pieces of moving equipment you can use to make lifting possible.
Moving straps
To move heavy furniture and keep it hands-free, look for moving straps or a shoulder dolly. They’re most likely the same thing, but these straps work to distribute the weight of lifting heavy objects across your body. so you can protect the large muscle groups in your back and legs.
There are two types of moving straps. Bigger ones hook over your shoulders, but you hold the heavy item in front. For smaller items, that still have a lot of weight, there’s also a backpack-style set of straps.
To use, you simply slide the strap under the furniture and make sure it’s securely in place.
Hand dolly
This dolly is the kind most people use to stack boxes on. However, you can also lean heavier furniture against it to wheel around as long as the furniture isn’t too tall. The height must stay below your neck so you can see where you’re going at all times.
To use, slide the bottom of the dolly underneath the furniture as far as it will go and tilt the dolly back slowly until you’ve successfully picked up the furniture. Make sure the piece won’t shift side to side as you’re moving it and consider strapping it to the dolly to keep it secure. This is a perfect time to use moving blankets since the furniture can scratch against the dolly as well as your walls.
You can move it
Getting all your heavy furniture to that new house is completely possible, and more affordable than buying new. This is true whether you’re flying solo, have enlisted a few friends or are getting things handled by a professional. All it takes is time, focus and a little extra care so you, your furniture and your old apartment stay safe and in good condition. Here’s to a happy experience moving that heavy dresser!
