Furniture dismantling and reassembly: beds, wardrobes and tables that won’t fit whole

This page explains how to tell which furniture needs taking apart, how to measure the pieces and the path they take, and how to get them ready. When you ask for a quote, tell us about these pieces and we confirm on your written quote how each one will be handled. Moveall lists assembling furniture among the extra tasks its team takes on. Furniture Removalists Adelaide is a service of Moveall Australia Pty Ltd, an Adelaide removalist.

Which furniture usually needs taking apart

Piece	Why it may need dismantling	What usually comes apart
Queen and king beds	Assembled in the room; the frame is wider than a door when it is whole	Head and foot boards from the side rails, slats out
Bunk beds and loft beds	Too tall and too heavy to carry assembled	Top bunk from the bottom, ladders and rails off
Tall wardrobes	Flat-pack wardrobes are often built in the room and taller than a stairwell allows	Doors off, then the carcass, if it was designed to come apart
Extension dining tables	Wider than a hallway or door with the legs on	Legs off, leaves out
Modular and corner lounges	Long in one piece	The sections unclipped from each other
Large desks and workstations	Return sections and hutches make them wide and top-heavy	Hutch off the desk, return off the main top
Cots	Assembled in the nursery	Sides from the ends, base out
Outdoor settings and play equipment	Large and awkward	Table legs off, umbrella out of its base

Plenty of furniture never needs taking apart: chests of drawers, sideboards, armchairs, most lounges, bedside tables and dining chairs travel whole. Built-in wardrobes and fixed cabinetry stay with the house.

How to measure a piece and the path it takes

A tape measure and ten minutes save a lot of guessing on moving day. Measure the piece first, then every gap it has to pass through between its room and the truck, and again at the new home if you can get in to measure.

1. Measure the piece: its height, width and depth at the widest points, including handles, mouldings and feet.
2. Measure each doorway: the clear width with the door open (a hinged door takes some of the opening) and the clear height.
3. Measure the hallway: its width, and the space at any turn, because long pieces have to swing round corners.
4. Measure the stairs: the width, the height of the ceiling above the stairs at its lowest point, and the space on any landing where the stairs turn.
5. Measure any lift: the door opening and the inside of the car, including its height and diagonal depth.
6. Compare: a piece can often pass through on its side or on an angle when it is too wide upright. If the smallest measurement of the piece is bigger than the smallest gap, it will need to come apart or go another way.

Adelaide homes and the pieces that get stuck

Adelaide’s older homes have their own quirks. Villas and cottages in suburbs such as Norwood, Unley and Prospect often have a long central hallway with rooms off each side, so a long piece has to make a right-angle turn into a bedroom door. Two-storey townhouses and newer homes often have stairs that turn on a landing, which limits the height of anything carried up. Apartments in the city and at Glenelg add a lift. Hills homes in Blackwood and Mount Barker may have a long, sloping path from the truck. Each is a reason to measure.

Apartments and lifts

In an apartment building the lift is often the tightest gap on the route. Measure the lift door and the inside of the car, including its height and the diagonal from a top corner to the opposite bottom corner, because a long piece can sometimes travel standing on end or tipped. Ask the building manager whether the lift has removable panels or a key for moving, and whether a goods lift or a loading area is available. Some buildings set times for moves and ask for the lift to be booked, so tell us the time you have been given. Our article on measuring furniture, doorways and stairs has a full checklist.

Flat-pack furniture

Flat-pack furniture is designed to be assembled, but not always to be taken apart and put back together many times. Each time the screws and cam locks are undone and redone in particleboard, the holes wear a little. Pieces that were assembled with glue or nails may not come apart at all without damage. So the question for a flat-pack piece is first whether it can travel whole, and only then whether it should be dismantled. If you still have the instructions, keep them with the piece: they show the order of assembly, which is the reverse of the order it comes apart.

Getting the pieces ready

• Empty everything. Drawers, shelves and wardrobes must be emptied of loose items, as Moveall’s terms ask.
• Photograph before anything comes apart, from the front, the back and underneath, so the pieces go back the same way.
• Bag the hardware. Screws, bolts, cam locks and brackets for each piece go in their own sealed bag, labelled with the piece’s name, and the bag is taped to the largest part of that piece.
• Keep the tools you know it needs. If a piece takes a special Allen key, tape it into the bag too.
• Label the parts. A strip of masking tape with ‘left side’ and ‘right side’, or ‘head’ and ‘foot’, saves time at the other end.
• Take bed linen and mattresses off the night before, so the frames are ready.

What to tell us at quote time

When you ask for a quote, Moveall’s customer care team asks about the bedrooms and living areas, the access at both homes, and any heavy or bulky items. Add the pieces from this page to that list: which beds, wardrobes and tables were assembled in the room, which may not fit the stairs or the lift, and their sizes if you have measured them. We confirm on your written quote how each of those pieces will be handled, so there are no surprises on the day.

Moveall’s fixed-price quotes rely on the inventory list given at the time of quoting, so a piece left off the list, or a job that was not mentioned, can add to the time on the day. A complete list keeps the quote accurate.

At the new home

Plan the rooms before moving day, so each dismantled piece is carried straight to the room where it will be rebuilt. Beds matter most: a bed that is back together on the first night makes the whole house feel settled. Wardrobes and desks can follow. The house furniture removals page explains how to label the rooms of the new house so the crew puts everything in the right place.

For how the whole furniture move runs, see furniture removalists in Adelaide. For heavy and old pieces, see antique and heavy furniture. For packing the rest of the house, see furniture packing and moving in Adelaide and our guide on how to pack furniture for moving.

Questions people ask