How to Pack Mirrors and Framed Pictures for Moving in Malaysia: No Mirror Box, One Sandwich, One Carton on Edge
Short answer: you will not find the tall, flat “mirror and picture box” that every overseas moving guide begins with in a Malaysian hardware shop, and you do not need it. Framed glass fails in two ways, point pressure on the glass and flex across the frame, and both are stopped by rigid board and a padded edge, not by a special box. For the one or two big pieces (a dressing mirror, a wedding portrait, a large painting), build the same cardboard sandwich used for a TV: PE foam on the glass, a double-wall layer pad on each face, angle bars around the rim, stretch film around the whole thing. For the twenty small and medium frames on the walls, stand them on edge in a double-wall carton, face to face and back to back, a piece of board between each pair, gaps filled, box kept under 20 kg. Carry everything upright, load it upright between two soft flat things in the lorry, and take it off the lorry last. Two things do not get packed at all: mirrored wardrobe doors travel on the wardrobe or come off and go in the sandwich, and a mirror glued to the wall stays on the wall.
Why the overseas method does not translate
Search “how to pack a mirror” and the first step is always the same: buy a picture box, or a pair of telescoping ones, from the truck-rental counter. Here, that box does not exist at retail. What is sold is ordinary cartons, corrugated sheets, foam, film and tape, so the method has to be rebuilt from those, which is what professional movers do anyway when they crate a large mirror.
The second thing the overseas guides miss is quantity. A Malaysian home with a few years of family in it has a wall of graduation and wedding photos, a couple of calligraphy pieces, some framed prints from IKEA, a dressing-table mirror, a full-length mirror behind a door and, in many condos, a bathroom mirror that is not going anywhere because it is stuck to the tiles. That is one or two big pieces and fifteen to thirty small ones. They need two different packing jobs, and treating them the same wastes either money or glass.
First, weigh the glass in your head
Glass is dense, roughly 2.5 kg for every square metre per millimetre of thickness. A mirror is typically 3 to 5 mm; picture-frame glass is usually 2 mm. So:
| Piece | Glass alone weighs about | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| A4 or A3 photo frame, 2 mm glass | 0.3–0.6 kg | Twenty of them is a 10 kg carton before the frames |
| 50 × 70 cm poster frame, 2 mm glass | ~1.8 kg | Two or three per carton, nothing heavier on top |
| 60 × 90 cm wall mirror, 4 mm | ~5.5 kg | One person, upright, sandwich |
| 60 × 180 cm full-length mirror, 5 mm | ~13.5 kg | Two people, sandwich with edge bars, never flat |
| Mirrored wardrobe door, 5 mm on a 50 × 200 cm panel | ~12.5 kg of glass plus the door | Comes off the track or stays on the wardrobe; see below |
The numbers matter for two reasons. They tell you the box-weight rule applies to a carton of frames as much as to books. And they explain why a large mirror carried flat breaks with no visible impact: laid on its back, its own weight bends the middle of the sheet over every bump in the road, exactly the load pattern a TV panel cannot take either.
The big pieces: the sandwich, borrowed from the TV post
Anything larger than about A2 (roughly 42 × 60 cm), and any mirror at all, gets the method from our TV-without-a-box post. The frame changes nothing; glass is glass.
- Foam on the glass first. One layer of 2 mm PE foam across the face, folded round the edges and taped to itself, never to the frame. For a heavy mirror or a piece over a metre, use 5 mm. Nothing else should ever touch the glass.
- A rigid pad on each face. Cut two double-wall layer pads about 5 cm larger than the piece on every side. A 1220 × 1220 mm pad cut in half covers anything up to about 60 × 120 cm; a 2440 × 1220 mm sheet does a full-length mirror. If you have a large once-used carton to spare, open it flat: a flattened double-wall box is a layer pad you have already paid for, and one big carton opened out is close to two metres long.
- Angle bars round the rim. Paper edge protectors cut to length over the four edges, so that when the sandwich is carried, set down or leaned, the load lands on the frame edge and not on the glass. On a thin modern frame this step is the difference between a sandwich and two bits of cardboard.
- Film, not tape, to close it. Wrap stretch film round the width, then round the height, pulled snug. Film squeezes the sandwich into one stiff slab and leaves no adhesive anywhere near the frame finish. Tape touches board, foam and film only.
- Write on it. “GLASS, THIS WAY UP, DO NOT LAY FLAT”, with arrows, on both faces. On moving day this line does more than the four steps above it.
Canvas and oil paintings are the one variation. The paint surface is softer than glass, and in a hot lorry plastic pressed against varnish can leave a mark, so keep everything off the picture surface: foam strips along the frame edges to create a gap, then the pad, then the film. If the painting is valuable, this is the item to ask a mover to crate.
The small and medium frames: a carton on edge
This is the job the overseas guides do not have a good answer for, because their answer is another picture box each. The Malaysian answer is one double-wall carton with the frames standing in it like books on a shelf.
- Pick the carton by the frames’ short side. Standing on their long edge, the frames must clear the top flaps. A once-used double-wall carton of around 590 × 390 × 390 mm takes A4 and A3 frames and most standard photo frames; a 430 × 310 × 260 mm carton takes A4 and smaller. Frames that will not fit standing up go in the sandwich, not lying flat in the bottom of the box.
- Line the base with a folded BB-flute pad or a fold of 5 mm foam, so the frame edges do not sit on the bare board.
- Wrap each frame in a turn of 2 mm PE foam or a sheet of paper, then pair them glass to glass and back to back. Two glass faces with foam between them cannot press a hanging hook or a corner into each other; two backs together keep the hooks and wire away from any glass.
- A strip of board between each pair. Cut single-wall board to the frame height and slide one in every two frames. It stops a frame edge working through the foam over a two-hour drive.
- Fill the gaps. Frames must not be able to lean or slide inside the box. Crushed paper, a rolled towel, more foam, whatever is to hand, pushed down the ends and along the top until nothing moves when you tilt the box.
- Stop at 15 kg. Glass in a carton is dense and unforgiving; a 20 kg box of frames is a box one corner of which will be dropped. Weigh it in your head with the table above, and split the load.
- H-seal the top, mark it FRAGILE and GLASS on two sides, and give it the same upright, top-of-the-load treatment as the sandwich.
Once-used Grade-A cartons are the right choice for this job: it is a one-trip, one-purpose box, double wall is what matters, and they cost a fraction of the price of new. Ask for double wall and say what it is for.
The honest verdict on the tape X
Taping a large X across a mirror before moving is in every guide, and it is worth being clear about what it does. It does not stop the glass breaking. A cross of masking tape adds nothing to the stiffness of a 4 mm sheet. What it does is hold the pieces together if the glass does break, so that a cracked mirror comes out of the wrapping as one dangerous slab rather than a pile of shards in the foam. That is worth having, so do it, with two conditions:
- Masking tape, never packing tape. Clear OPP tape is made to bond hard and stay bonded through heat; the tape post explains why, and on glass or a lacquered frame it comes off with a fight and can leave residue. Masking tape comes from the hardware shop; we do not sell it and will not pretend packing tape is a substitute.
- Off the same day. Tape left on a mirror through a week in a hot store room, or a month in self-storage, can leave adhesive behind that is harder to remove than the tape was. Tape on the morning, off on arrival.
No tape at all on the painted back of a mirror, on canvas or on a frame finish you care about.
The two things you should not pack
Mirrored wardrobe doors. A modern built-in or IKEA-type wardrobe with sliding mirror doors is moved by the frame, and the doors are its most fragile and heaviest part. Sliding doors usually lift out of their track, top first; taken off, each one is a full-length mirror and gets the sandwich, carried by two people, upright. Hinged mirror doors stay on. Then the wardrobe is wrapped like any other furniture: 5 mm foam over the mirror face, a layer pad over that, film in bands to hold the padding, never film against the glass or the wood on its own. Tape the doors shut with masking tape at the edges, not across the mirror.
Mirrors glued to the wall. Bathroom mirrors and feature-wall mirrors in many Malaysian condos and terrace houses are fixed with mirror adhesive or silicone, not screws. A mirror stuck to tiles rarely comes off in one piece without a glazier and a cutting wire, and in a rental it is a fixture that belongs to the unit anyway. Leave it, note it on the handover checklist, and buy a mirror for the new place.
Loading and the lorry
- Everything upright, all the time. Carried on edge, leaned on edge against a wall while waiting, loaded on edge. The only time a framed piece lies flat is on the table while you wrap it.
- Between two soft flat things. In the lorry, sandwiches stand between a mattress and a sofa back, or between two mattresses, wedged so they cannot slide forward when the lorry brakes. Nothing goes on top of them, nothing hard leans on them.
- Frame cartons ride high and last. On top of the load, never under, and among the last things on so they are among the first things off. In a shared load with strangers’ boxes, the lorry post has the reasons for keeping your fragile layer together.
- In a car, a sandwich stands across the back seat with the seatbelt through the film, a fold of foam under the bottom edge. This is the better option for a single valuable piece within the Klang Valley.
- Unpack them last, hang them last. Frames can wait in their carton for a week; they are the least urgent thing in the house, as the unpacking-order post argues. Open the box on a rug or a bed, not on a tiled floor.
Which packing for which piece
| Piece | Method | Materials |
|---|---|---|
| Photo frames, A4, A3, small prints | Carton on edge, paired glass to glass, board between pairs | 1 double-wall carton per 15–20 frames, 2 mm foam, single-wall board strips, tape |
| Poster frames 50 × 70 cm, mid-size mirrors up to ~60 × 90 cm | Sandwich | 1 × 1220 × 1220 mm double-wall pad cut in half, 2 mm foam, 2 angle bars, film |
| Full-length mirror, large painting, glass table top | Sandwich, two people | 2440 × 1220 mm double-wall pads, 5 mm foam, angle bars, film; honeycomb board on one face for a very heavy piece |
| Canvas or oil painting | Sandwich with a gap: foam strips on the frame, nothing on the paint | As above plus 5 mm foam strips |
| Mirrored wardrobe door | Off the track and into the sandwich, or padded on the wardrobe | 5 mm foam, layer pad, film in bands, masking tape at the edges |
| Mirror glued to the wall | Stays | Nothing |
Mirror and picture checklist
- Every frame and mirror counted; big pieces (larger than A2, any mirror) separated from small ones
- Hooks, wire and standing feet taped down or removed; screws taped to the piece they came from
- Masking tape X on mirrors and large glass, put on the same morning
- Sandwich: foam on glass, pad each face, angle bars on all four edges, film round both ways, labelled on both faces
- Frame carton: base lined, frames on edge, paired glass to glass and back to back, board between pairs, no movement when tilted, under 15 kg, H-sealed, marked GLASS on two sides
- Wardrobe sliding mirror doors lifted out and sandwiched; hinged doors padded and taped shut at the edges
- Glued bathroom or feature mirrors left in place and noted at handover
- Loaded upright between two soft flat items, nothing on top, on last and off first
- Tape off the glass on arrival day; frames unpacked on a soft surface, hung last
FAQ
Do I need a mirror box to move a mirror in Malaysia?
No, and you will struggle to buy one. A mirror box only does two jobs, keeping pressure off the glass and stopping the frame flexing, and a sandwich of two double-wall layer pads with PE foam on the glass, angle bars on the edges and stretch film round the outside does both. It is what movers build when they crate a mirror.
Does taping an X on a mirror stop it breaking?
No. The tape adds nothing to the strength of the glass. What it does is hold the fragments together if the mirror breaks, so it is still worth doing, but with masking tape rather than packing tape, and taken off the same day so it does not leave adhesive behind in the heat.
Can I lay mirrors and pictures flat in the lorry?
No. A sheet of glass lying on its back is unsupported in the middle, and its own weight plus road vibration flexes it over every bump; that is how mirrors arrive cracked with no dent in the packing. Carry and load them upright, on edge, wedged between two soft flat items such as mattresses, with nothing on top.
How do I move a wardrobe with mirror doors?
If the doors slide, lift them out of the track and pack each one as a full-length mirror in a cardboard sandwich, carried upright by two people. If they are hinged, leave them on: 5 mm PE foam over the mirror, a layer pad over the foam, stretch film in bands to hold it, and masking tape at the door edges to stop them swinging open. Never film or tape directly against the mirror.
Can I send a framed picture by courier?
Yes, if it is packed as a small sandwich and then boxed with about 5 cm of foam or crushed paper on every side, so the outer carton takes the knocks and the sandwich takes the pressure. Check the courier’s terms first, because glass and framed items are often listed as no-compensation goods. Our fragile-shipping post covers the double-boxing method.
Materials for the sandwich and the frame carton
Quinocycle supplies once-used Grade A cartons from RM1.20, ask for double wall, along with layer pads and angle bars, PE foam in 2 mm and 5 mm, stretch film and packing tape. They are the same items used for wrapping furniture and sandwiching a TV, so a whole-house move counts them once. Masking tape is a hardware-shop item; we do not sell it. Delivery is free on orders above RM300 across KL and Selangor.
If you would rather not work out the quantities, WhatsApp +60 16-891 6381 or contact us with the number of frames and the size of the largest mirror, and we will suggest a list. We are open Monday to Friday 9am–5pm and Saturday 9am–1pm.