An oversized picture comes off the wall as one rigid frame, with the glazing still in it, and it leaves as furniture. It is not a media wall, and it is not a cabinet. Name the frame, the glass or the acrylic, and the fixing that held it, before you ask anyone to carry it.
A booking that says “some art” will be read as a small parcel. If the frame is wider than the door looks, the photo has to show the whole frame and the tightest point on the way out.
Decide whether it is a picture
Look at the object before you take it down. A framed print, a canvas on a stretcher and a glazed poster are this page when the thing on the wall is one picture. A run of cabinets under a television is not. That unit, its fixings and its shelves, is the media-wall note. Stay there when the wood is a console or a wall-fixed unit. Come here when the only object is the frame.
A glass display cabinet, with shelves and doors, is a different piece again. Emptying it and counting its panels is the glass-cabinet note. Do not use this page to empty a cabinet, and do not call a cabinet a picture because the doors are glazed.
A floor lamp taller than the doorway is not a frame. The shade, the stem and the opening are the floor-lamp note. A wall mirror is not a picture. This site does not have a separate mirror guide, and this page will not invent one. If the object is a mirror, say “mirror” in the booking and do not follow the picture steps as if there were a print and a backing to protect. The glass is the object. Stop and describe that, rather than stretching this note over it.
If you are not allowed to remove the frame, because it is the landlord’s, a gallery’s or part of a dressed flat, leave it on the wall. Display stock that has not been released is a different problem from a picture you own. Do not book a frame you have not been allowed to send.
Write one line a person who has not seen the room could use: “one glazed frame, still on the living-room wall, landscape, wider than the internal door looks”. If the line does not say it is a picture and that it is still up, or that you have already taken it down, it is not ready.
Leave it on the wall until the fixing is clear
Do not pull the frame to see if it will come free. Frames hang from a wire, a pair of rings, a cleat or screws you cannot see from the front. A pull can leave the frame in your hands with the wire still on the hook, or it can leave the hook in the wall and the frame on the floor.
Look from the side. If you can see a wire and a hook, and the frame lifts off without tools, you can lift it. Have a second person if you would not want to find out the weight alone. Put it down on a clear patch of floor, face up or on its edge, not face down on a bare tile if the face is glass.
If you cannot see how it is held, stop. Photograph the side and the lower edge. A French cleat, a security screw or a fitting into a solid wall is a reason to leave it up until someone who is allowed to release it has looked. This page does not tell you to drill, cut or lever a fixing out of a wall.
Screws and plugs that stay in the wall are not part of the picture. Taking the frame down is not the same job as repairing the wall. Filling a hole, painting a patch or replacing a hook is outside this collection. Leave the fixing, photograph it, and say it is still there. Do not book a decorator inside a furniture request.
If the frame is the landlord’s and the hook is yours, or the other way around, decide both before the frame is on the floor. A frame in the hallway and a rawl plug you were not meant to remove is two problems. Write which one you are sending.
The glazing stays in the frame
Treat the glass, the acrylic or the bare canvas as part of the frame until it is already loose. Do not take the back off to make the piece lighter. Do not remove the glazing to make the frame narrower. A sheet of glass carried separately is a new hazard, and the empty frame is still the same height and width.
If a corner of the glass is already cracked, or a sheet is already out of the rebate, stop forcing it. Lay the loose sheet flat on a patch of floor you can keep clear. Do not tape across the middle of a crack and do not press the broken face. Photograph the crack from a standing position. Say “glass cracked” or “one sheet already loose”. A person can then decide whether it is still a normal carry.
Do not break the glass so the frame will fit a door, a lift or a bag. Broken glass in a picture is not a plan. It is a cut risk and a mess in the room the frame still has to leave.
A canvas without glass is still rigid if it is on a stretcher. Do not fold it. Do not take the canvas off the stretcher bars to roll it, unless the person who will carry it has agreed that, and you have a way to keep the bars labelled with the canvas. The default is the whole frame. The decision to take a piece of furniture apart, and when not to, is the dismantling guide. Use that page for the decision. Use this page for the fact that a picture is one frame, and the usual answer is to leave it whole.
The backing board, the wire and the rings stay on the frame. A wire that swings can catch a door. Tape the wire flat to the back, or twist it so it cannot loop, without covering the whole back. The next person needs to see that it is a frame and not a cabinet.
If the frame has a heavy mount, a wide moulding or a deep box, say so. Depth is the measurement people forget. A thin poster frame and a deep box frame of the same height do not turn the same corner.
Measure the frame, then the route
Measure the height, the width and the depth, including the moulding. Measure to the outside of the frame, not to the edge of the image. Write the three numbers on the note. If you cannot measure the depth because the frame is still on the wall, measure height and width and write “depth not taken yet”, then take it once the frame is down.
The way to photograph one rigid object and the tight points on its route is the bulky-piece method. Use that method here. This page does not replace it. The object in that method, for this job, is the frame.
Walk the route with the numbers in your hand, or with a stick cut to the width if you have one. Check the room door, the narrowest corridor, the lift door if you have been told a lift may be used, and the turn onto the landing. A frame often fails on the diagonal you hoped would save you. Do not assume a diagonal. If it will not pass in the orientation you can actually carry, say so. Do not start cutting the moulding in the corridor.
A balcony door is not the exit unless the building has said the frame may leave that way, and you have a way down that is not a drop. Write the door you are allowed to use. If you have not been told, write “door not confirmed” and ask before the day.
Chairs, a console and a shoe rack are part of the width when they stand in the route. Move them before you measure, or measure with them there and accept the smaller number. A width taken in an emptied doorway, when the doorway will not be empty, is the wrong width.
If the building has a rule about protection, lifts or a time slot, copy what you were given into the note. This page does not say what towers require. Buildings differ. A rule from one address is not a rule for the next. If you have been told nothing, write “no lift instruction yet”.
The picture shows a sofa, a chair, a cabinet and shelving by a doorway. It does not show a framed picture, glazing or a wall hook. Use it only as a picture of furniture kept beside a clear door. Your own photos still have to show the frame.
More than one frame is more than one line
Count the frames that are leaving. Two large frames and six small ones are eight lines, or one line that states both counts and shows both sizes. “The pictures” is not a count. A small frame can ride with a large one only if both appear in the photo and the note.
Group the small frames so they cannot slide. Do not stack them face to face if the faces are glass. A sheet of card between glass faces is a separation, not a promise they will not crack. Say that they are glass. Do not wrap them in a way that hides the count.
A frame you are keeping should be off the pile or labelled in the message. A wall of pictures, photographed wide, will be read as a wall of pictures leaving. If only the oversized one is leaving, the others should not look like part of the load. Take them down and set them aside if you can do that without damaging them, or leave them up and point at the one that is going.
The hanging hardware from the frames you are keeping stays on those frames or in a dish you do not pack with the leaving piece. A hook in the bottom of a crate of glass is how a sheet gets scratched before it reaches the door.
If one of the frames is a mirror, pull it out of the picture count and name it separately, as the opening said. Do not let the word “frames” hide it.
What stays on the wall
After the frame is down, look at the wall. A hook, a cleat, a screw and a plug may still be there. Photograph them. Say whether they are staying, because the wall is not yours to repair, or because you were asked to leave the fittings. Do not dig plugs out with a knife as part of this job.
A stain, a faded patch or a hole is not something this collection fills. If a landlord will look at the wall, the photo of the fixing is the record. The collection is the frame. The conversation about the wall is with the person who owns the wall.
Do not book the frame and then describe the job as “make the wall good”. That is a different trade. Say the frame is leaving and the wall is as the photo shows it.
Cables, a picture light and a plug behind the frame are not part of the frame either. If a light is screwed to the wall or wired in, leave it unless someone who can release it has done so. Unplug a plug you can see. Do not cut a cable to free the frame. If the frame cannot come off without that cable, the frame is not ready, and the note should say why.
A shelf or a rail that the frame was hiding is a separate piece. Name it or leave it. Do not include it in the word “picture” because it was on the same wall.
Photograph the frame and the tight point
Send four photos.
The first is the whole frame, front on, so the height and width are visible against a door or a person-sized object you mention. Include the moulding.
The second is the edge, so the depth and the glazing can be seen, and any crack is visible if there is one. If a sheet is already loose, photograph it where it is lying, not in your hands.
The third is the back, or the side, showing the wire, the rings or the fitting, and a photo of whatever is still on the wall.
The fourth is the tightest point on the route: the door, the turn or the lift opening you have been told about. If you have not walked it, you are early.
Add the three measurements, or the ones you have, and the sentence about whether the frame is still whole. Say how many frames. Say what is staying on the wall.
If the frame is still up because you could not see the fixing, send the side photo and do not ask for a collection time yet. A time booked against a frame that will not lift off is a wasted slot.
Take the photos in room light. Glass facing a window becomes a white sheet, and the size disappears. Step to the side so the frame edge is the thing in focus.
Book the frame as furniture
Treat the frame as furniture when it is yours to send and the glazing is either secure in the frame or already set aside and photographed. This is one picture, or the counted set of pictures. It is not a media wall, and it is not a request to repair the wall.
In the message, say:
- how many frames, and that the large one is a picture
- whether the face is glass, acrylic, canvas or unknown
- the height, width and depth, or “depth not taken yet”
- whether it is still on the wall, and why, or that it is down
- any crack, loose sheet or missing piece
- what is still on the wall
- the door and the tight point
- any lift note, or “no lift instruction yet”
- what else on that wall is staying
Do not write “artwork” as the only line. Name the frame. A measurement of the image inside the mount, without the moulding, is the wrong measurement.
If the piece still will not pass the door in one piece, go back to the dismantling page before you book a visit that assumes it will. Do not leave that discovery for the corridor.
If you are not sure the frame is yours, you are early. Leave it up.
The media-wall page remains the unit under a screen. The cabinet page remains a glazed cabinet. The bulky-piece page remains the photo and the route. The dismantling page remains the decision to take something apart.
On the morning it leaves
Leave the frame where the photos showed it, on its edge or face up, with the path clear. Do not stand it in a corridor overnight. Do not lean it on a glass door.
Point at the frames that are staying, and at the hook that is staying on the wall, so neither is taken as part of the load. Point at a loose sheet if there is one, and at the fact that you did not break anything to make it fit.
Walk the route once before anyone lifts. A console you moved back into the doorway after measuring is the new tight point. Move it again.
If the frame will not pass on the day, stop. Do not turn it onto a diagonal you have not tried, and do not start unscrewing the moulding in the lobby. The frame comes back into the room, and the note is updated. A second attempt is a new look at the same measurements, not a harder push.
When it has gone, look at the wall once more. The hook should still be what you said it would be. A cleat you meant to leave should not be in the vehicle. The useful record is the line you wrote at the start: one frame, what the face is, and the fixing you did not turn into a repair.
