Moving Ikea Stuva loft bed

diy

I moved the Ikea Stuva loft bed from Chloe’s room to Gavin’s this weekend. I highly recommend you to persuade your kids to switch rooms to avoid the hassle; otherwise, I hope this post be useful.

The Stuva bed is large, 196cm ×\times 113cm ×\times 182cm; and heavy. It is impossible to move the furniture as whole across the 75cm wide door way. We need to destruct it to pieces:

  • The storage system, marked as 1 below.
  • The desk, not shown below.
  • The bed frames, — all the remaining pieces.

It is also worthy noting that DO NOT FOLLOW THE REVERSE ORDER OF MANUAL. For example, if we detach the ladder as the last step of Stuva install manual, we can no longer reach the bed support(2 below).

Step-by-step disassemble instructions
Step-by-step disassemble instructions

The bed frame is secured with the storage system with desk support(4), front rail(5), and back panel(6), marked with blue arrows(➤) above. As the bed is placed in the corner, it is really hard to reach the connector for the desk support(4) and the storage system(1).

First, I removed the bed support(2), and front panel(3), you might need some help from your kids:

Chloe with power tool
Chloe with power tool

The we we can remove the ladder, and unscrew the connectors for front rail(5), and back panel(6). Carefully lift the front rail and back panel to detach them from the storage, and rest them freely on top of the storage system.

Detach rail and back panel
Detach rail and back panel

Pull the storage system away from the wall gently to bend the desk support(4) a little bit to give you enough room to access the fastener. BE CAUTIOUS OF THE FREELY MOVING FRONT RAIL AND BACK PANEL! THEY ARE NOT SECURED, PLEASE HANDLE THEM WITH CAUTION!

After the desk support(4) is detached from the storage, we can push the storage away from the the left panel(7), then pull the left panel(7) away from the wall to gain some room to access the screw of the front panel(5):

Remove front rail
Remove front rail

Finally, we can detach the desk from the desk support(4), and disassemble the back panel(6) from the left panel(7).

Detach Desk from Stuva loft bed
Detach Desk from Stuva loft bed

Installation

We can follow the Stuva install manual to assemble the bed in the other room. I think the step 17 is quite awkward, though managed to pull it off with my wife’s help.

Step 17
Step 17

In the retrospect, I think we can mount the front rail(5) on the storage, then secure it with left panel(7). Install the back panel(6) with similar approach. It might be a little tricky to install the bed support since the allowance is quite small. I think I can pursue this direction next time — hopefully not!