Looking for foundation or frame for queen bed that folds or splits

January 31, 2016 3:35 PM

We need to upgrade my 18-year-old son from his child's single bed to a full or queen size. A friend has offered to give us his almost-never-used queen sized mattress/futon hybrid (I'm not actually clear on what exactly it is). I want to get a base for it, and figured we'd take a drive down to Ikea. But my concern is that my son's room is on the 3rd floor up 2 flights of progressively more narrow, steep, twisting stairs. There's no way a regular queen size--or even full size--bed frame or base will go up the stairs. I know that king size beds often come split into 2 pieces, but what about queen?

Are you aware if Ikea carries anything like that? I'm not sure if we'll go for a bed frame or platform, or what they call a "foundation" and legs. Not sure what the functional differences are between these choices, as well as their foldable/splittable qualities. Any suggestions? Our Ikea's a full hour's drive away, so I'd like to be more informed before we decide to head down there. Thanks!

posted by primate moon to Home & Garden (17 answers total)

Other than a box spring (and I don't even know if IKEA sells box springs) everything is going to come in flat-pack form-- thin, narrow, long boxes. If you can get a 2x8 the length of a queen bed up the stairs, the parts for an Ikea bed frame won't be an issue. The platform slats are on a roll, and there won't be any large panel pieces (or at least there will be choices that won't have those pieces).

This all assumes that assembly in his room is possible.
posted by supercres at 3:40 PM on January 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, most (all?) Ikea bed frames come flat-packed and need to be assembled. Are you saying the boxes of frame pieces won't fit up the stairs? If so, you could always open them up downstairs and bring up all the pieces separately and assemble in your son's room. (And disassemble, if needed later.)

I like the Mandal bed platform/slat frame, it has storage drawers underneath!
posted by mon-ma-tron at 3:41 PM on January 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've only ever had bed frames with slats (the solid bed bases really aren't such a thing here) and IKEA defintely has ones that come in lots of pieces. I have the tarva bed frame which you can see from the picture comes in lots of bits of wood.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49129619/
posted by kitten magic at 3:41 PM on January 31, 2016

Best answer: The Ikea website has the dimensions of each box used for a particular piece of furniture. It’s in “Package Measurements and Weight” under the Product Information tab. You should be able to use that information to suss out what might make it up your stairs. I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble with most of their bed frames; even the tallest headboards are usually in a box broken down into two or three pieces.
posted by bcwinters at 3:42 PM on January 31, 2016

Everyone is right that you can build the IKEA bed upstairs, but also, there are definitely split box springs for queen-size beds -- I've got one under my mattress right now. Mine is from Sleepy's, but I see a bunch on Amazon and whatnot (search "split queen box spring"). You could probably order it online and save the drive.
posted by babelfish at 4:08 PM on January 31, 2016

Best answer: Also on Amazon is this folding mattress system.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B006MIUM20/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1454285474&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=folding+bedframe&dpPl=1&dpID=51VMwhfluNL&ref=plSrch
posted by jbenben at 4:12 PM on January 31, 2016

I bought seven 2 drawer shelf 'whatever you call them' units from Target. Put 3 to a side, one at the bottom.
Covered it with two. 1/2 in 2.5 foot X 6 foot pieces of plywood. I was able to move it all myself and put my mattress on top of it. (I have a big Sleep Number air thing) I secured the mattress to the plywood by using that waffle type shelf liner between the mattress and the wood and between the wood and the shelf things.

I did this 6 years ago and it's still in perfect condition. A teen might be 'a tad' more rough on this kind of thing than I, but...it's an idea you can expound upon.
posted by donaken at 4:29 PM on January 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: This is a folding platform bed - ignore the picture, which is of the split king. The queen is a single piece, the legs fold flat, and the whole thing folds in half. It's about the size of a folding party table.

We have the king version in our bedroom. My only complaint is that I had to put slit-open sections of pool noodle over the middle and foot legs because they're not set in underneath the bed at all, and if you are clumsy you will kick them and if you are me you will break all your toes. The noodles work a treat, though.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:57 PM on January 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: jbenben and Lyn Never, you both posted the same item which looks very promising. And thanks for the advice about padding the legs.

Thanks, everyone!
posted by primate moon at 5:04 PM on January 31, 2016

I have a split box spring for my queen sized mattress. They can be found.
posted by lizbunny at 5:09 PM on January 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've got the one jbenben linked to and it works pretty well, but It isn't great for underbed storage because of the diagonal supports. We also have a similar thing in another room from a different brand which I cannot for the life of me remember (it isn't written on the frame). I liked installing the other one better because there were no wingnuts or loose support arms during the installation, but once they're in, they're exactly the same.
posted by mattamatic at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2016

This is probably not what you're looking for, but if this is the same as the bed I bought some years ago (and the joints/fastenings are the same), then this four-poster queen futon bed basically comes as, and disassembles into, a pile of straight wood pieces. The ends fasten onto each other with little sticking-out screw heads that fit into metal grooves. It's amazing! Also beautiful. (Mine was less than half this price when I bought it -- this is expensive).

The bed has been super handy; I've been able to fit it, and a futon, into the back of a hatchback car for moving.

I'm actually considering selling mine (queen size), since we now want a traditional mattress and boxspring, but I'm way too far away for that to be practical for you...
posted by amtho at 7:12 PM on January 31, 2016

Mattresses that arrived rolled or packed up and compressed, in foam or spring, can be had at IKEA. Likewise Casper and Walmart sell foam mattesses that are compressed. You free them from their box or wrap and they snap out to full size.

Good luck eventually getting it out of there, but getting it in should be easy!
posted by slateyness at 7:21 PM on January 31, 2016

Oh -- in my experience, the really difficult thing is getting the futon up the stairs. Make sure it's folded and wrapped with rope, and that the rope has some kind of handle system built in so that you can grip the whole thing pretty well. Don't hurt yourself :)
posted by amtho at 8:16 PM on January 31, 2016

Be aware that the one that jbenben and Lyn Never linked to is pretty noisy (compared to others I've owned) during sex. Depending on your policies on your son having sex at home, this may or may not be a feature.
posted by Candleman at 8:20 PM on January 31, 2016

Something to be aware of is that if you already have the matress (sounds like you do?) and just want to buy a frame and possibly box springs, is that at least as of a couple of years ago, the Ikea-sized beds were not the same as the standard American king-queen-full-twin...they were all a couple of inches off. So unless this has changed, I would not try to pair an Ikea frame/boxspring with a non-Ikea mattress.

That said, we have a split queen boxspring and it works great! I believe it was just purchased at a regular mattress store.
posted by rainbowbrite at 8:44 AM on February 1, 2016

and if you want a more proper-looking box spring, the sleep master smart box spring is a metal frame that you assemble yourself and then pull a cover over. we sleep on a queen size one every night. since you assemble it, the box is fairly small. it could probably make it up circular stairs even!

of course, you'd have to at least partially disassemble it to get it down again :)
posted by noloveforned at 11:21 AM on February 1, 2016