Whether it’s an original copy of a painting or old gold carpets from the 17th century you’ve got, these items need proper maintenance to keep them intact and as valuable as they are right now.
Storing antiques and artwork sounds like an easy task, but there are a lot of things to have in mind before you put them in a randomly selected living space or a box for long-term preservation.
Although consulting with a specialist in the field is always a good idea, our today’s step-by-step guide might be helpful enough for you to deal with the task. Spend a few minutes with us and discover how to store artwork and antiques like a real connoisseur.
Prepare the Storage Environment
Placing expensive, sentimentally valuable or rare art items in a random drawer in your house is not a very smart idea.
Instead, you must select the most suitable area inside your property and prep it for a risk-free storage function. Below, we will give some hints that might make it more straightforward for you how to preserve the look and the value of any artwork you possess.
How to Choose the Right Room?
You shouldn’t aimlessly pick up the most spacious or just the free room in your house for antique preservation. There are rules in the selection of the best and most suitable room where you can keep your artwork pieces.
Here’s what you have to know and weigh:
- Select a room that’s ready to be used. We understand how tempting it is to have a premise with no repairs done for the last couple of decades for a storage facility at home. However, the condition of the room might eventually influence the condition of your valuable items. Besides, what if someday you wake up in the mood for some renovations? You will put your artworks stored there at a massive risk while panting, making fixes, changing pipes or tiles, and you name it.
- Is the attic a good alternative? It sounds too logical to store the paintings there, doesn’t it? Yet, it’s unhealthy for any piece of art to be kept in a place without climate control. Attics are very dangerous for such items as they usually provide direct sunlight access. The more the UV lights reach the painting, the more faded its colours would become in a couple of months only.
- What about the basement? Unfortunately, it’s unsuitable for any antiques and other valuable art items. In this case, the risk factor is the humidity level. Wetness can literally spoil the piece of art and reduce its final price. Conversely, a high humidity level means a soon threat of mould.
How to Ensure Storage Safety?
Is there anything else besides the high temperature and humidity that can be risky for your artwork besides the sunlight?
Yes, other factors can reduce the safety level in the room you choose for art storage. For instance, dusty and grim places are not ok for such valuable items.
And there are some things to consider increasing this safety factor in your self-storage facility:
- Avoid packing in plastic materials as they cause mould. Instead, choose cardboard or wooden boxes;
- Bubble wrapping is an excellent way to protect the artwork safely;
- Carefully examine the artwork before putting it for long-term storage at home. Don’t pack it before you make sure that it’s intact and needs no fixes or decent maintenance actions;
- 18 degrees is the most optimal temperature to keep different antiques and paintings regardless of what materials and paints they are made of;
- Don’t roll your picture because you will ruin it like that;
- As a matter of fact, why remove the frame at all? Experts claim that the more a painting is backed up with different safety accessories, the better you will preserve it in its top condition;
- Don’t wrap or pack any artwork or antiques before cleaning it carefully. Don’t use any chemical detergents or water-based sanitising techniques. Instead, have a microfiber just to remove the dust;
- When choosing a storage area, don’t put any antiques or other art pieces directly on the ground.
Consider Self Storage Facility
Consider a professional storage facility if all the safety conditions and factors mentioned above cannot be provided in your home. This could be the most practical piece of advice to receive when dealing with artwork preservation without being a pro or an artist who knows the basics.
You shouldn’t ask how much self-storage costs because the truth is that you can eventually pay more by damaging your panting or ruining your antique furniture requiring only professional and costly repairs.
How to Choose the Right Storage Facility
Storage facilities are growing globally in numbers every year. However, just like you have to consider some factors when wondering where at home to preserve your pieces of art safely and intact, you must be careful when selecting a specific professional company.
This shouldn’t be a sturdy task when you’ve got the following step-by-step guide to follow:
- Know your options by doing research on all the local storage facility companies at a decent distance from your own house;
- Compare the different offers by contacting all companies with certain requirements for your future storage model rent;
- Don’t go for the cheapest offer, but for the one that has the perfect balance between price and service quality;
- Reputation usually says everything, so finding out some testimonials about concrete storage companies can throw some light on what would be the best option for you;
- On mandatory insist on a specially tailored storage service that’s related to artwork preservation;
- Climate-controlled storage modules will have your special items in the most optimal environment where the temperature is permanently fixed and proper while the humidity level is reduced to zero.
How to Prepare the Item for Self Storage
Make sure to get a free consultation from the storage company.
During the chitchat with the employee, you will be given concrete instructions on how to prepare your artwork best. Sometimes, the technicians require the customers to use the company’s commercial packing materials for such specific items.
Artworks and Antiques Self-Storage Tips
We would like to offer you a bunch of extra self-storage tips to ensure your artwork and antiques will be appropriately preserved.
Make sure to consider these guides and tricks, too:
- All wooden antiques should be preliminarily treated with wax not to lose their natural shine;
- Some metal items could be polished in advance to be preserved in their best way;
- When transporting your artworks to the storage facility, make sure to dismantle them in advance to simplify and safe-proof the travelling process;
- Carpets shouldn’t be rolled, either;
- Before placing your items in the storage facility, take a photo of their condition to make sure that you will find them untouched during the following visit;
- Have an inventory list of all your stored artworks.
Conclusion
Lastly, we would like to warn you that if you are using professional storage services, there’s a 99.99% possibility for the company to offer you insurance.
It’s a common practice for storage facility providers to add such an extra when such delicate and specific items are preserved.
Insurance is an additional way to make sure that your paintings and antique pieces of furniture are in a safe place.
