How to Disassemble a Bed Frame (IKEA and General Step-by-Step)

Pull the mattress, sheets, pillows, and mattress topper off the frame. Drag the mattress to another room or stand it against a wall - you need clear floor space around all four sides of the bed frame.

Lay out your tools where you can reach them: a drill driver with a Philips bit, an Allen wrench (the L-shaped hex key that came with the bed - usually 4 mm or 5 mm), slip-joint pliers, and the IKEA combo wrench if you still have the silver one IKEA includes in the hardware bag. A manual screwdriver works if you don't own a drill, it'll just take longer.

Most platform beds (including the MALM) have a row of wooden slats running across the metal slat rails. On IKEA frames the slats are joined by two fabric strips, so they fold up like an accordion into two bundles.

Grab one end of the slat bundle and lift straight up. The bundle should free itself from the metal slat rail. Set the bundle on its edge against the wall - it folds flat, so it doesn't take much space. If your bed uses individual loose slats instead, stack them in order so you don't have to figure out which one goes where later.

Underneath the slats sit two long aluminum rails - the slat support. They're screwed into the inside of each long side rail with a row of small Philips screws.

Run your drill driver down the row and back out every screw. The rails will fall free as soon as the last screw on each side is out. There are usually five or six screws per side, so you're pulling about a dozen screws total. Drop them straight into a ziploc bag as they come out and label the bag "slat rail screws." Mixing screw sizes is how a 15-minute reassembly turns into an hour.

With the slat rails off, the long wooden side rails are still held to the base of the headboard and footboard by a row of larger screws. On the MALM these run along the bottom inside edge of each side rail.

Drive each one out with the drill. You'll usually find two or three screws per corner, eight to twelve total. The side rails are still standing because they're seated on dowels - the screws are doing the holding, not the support. Once the screws are out, the rails are loose but not falling. Drop these into a second ziploc and label it "side rail screws" so you don't mix them with the smaller slat-rail screws.

With the side-rail screws out, the headboard is only held to the side rails by the dowels in the corner joints. Grab the headboard by both upper edges and tilt it straight up off the dowels.

The MALM headboard is wide and a little awkward but not heavy. Lean it flat against a wall well away from foot traffic - it's a big white panel and scratches show. If you have a roll of shrink wrap, this is a good moment to wrap the front face so it doesn't get scuffed on the moving truck.

Look at the inside face of each side rail where it meets the headboard panel. You'll see one or two round metal cam-lock fittings sitting flush with the wood. They look like a coin with a hex-shaped slot in the middle.

Slot the short end of the Allen wrench into the hex and turn counter-clockwise about a half turn. That rotates the cam inside the joint and releases the metal pin that's gripping the dowel. You'll feel it click. Don't keep turning past the release point - you'll unscrew the cam entirely and dropping it inside the wood is a hassle to fish out.

Walk to the foot of the bed and repeat the cam-lock release on both footboard corners. Same Allen wrench, same half turn counter-clockwise, same click.

With all four corner cam-locks released, the side rails will slide free of the headboard and footboard panels. Lift each side rail away and set it against a wall with the other parts. You should now have four flat pieces - two long side rails, one headboard, one footboard - plus the slat bundles you removed earlier.

Stack the four panels flat - headboard on the bottom, then the two side rails, then the footboard on top. The whole stack is about 6 inches thick and fits along a wall or under a truck bench.

Take each ziploc of screws and tape it to the inside face of the matching panel. Write the bed name on a piece of painter's tape and stick it to one of the rails ("queen MALM - master bedroom") so the movers don't end up reassembling a bedside table on the wrong floor. If you're putting the frame in storage, wrap the whole stack in a moving blanket or shrink wrap so the white surfaces don't pick up grit during transport.