When your furniture won't fit up the stairs....

[pamela]

Just remember that anything you assemble up there has to be disassembled to come back down. A lot of assembly required furniture doesn't seem to disassemble quite as well.

For a dresser, what size/shape is the one you're having a problem with and where are you getting stuck in the stairwell (does it turn with a sharp landing or something)?

[imojoebunny]

Just chiming in to say "I feel your pain". The people before us ended up putting in a standard door with a small balcony. it was where a window had been to solve this problem. It was cheaper than buying new furniture. We got rid of the balcony and added a screened porch to the lower level with a low pitch roof, and put a decorative metal grate, I don't know what you call it, but a lot of apartments here have them, over the door way on the outside. We can unscrew one side, and it swings open so that we can move furniture in and out by lowering it down to the porch step landing from the roof, if that makes sense. It's loads of fun, but it works and looks good.

If you have decent sized closets, you might consider a closet system instead of chest of drawers, also for the bed, you can get the split queen or king mattress base, and a foam mattress, like temperpedic. We have a walmart version of the temperpedic at our cabin, It was about $500. It is not as good as the tempupedic, but it's pretty good.

[justjen]

Feb 24, 2014 16:17:31 GMT -5 pamela said:

Just remember that anything you assemble up there has to be disassembled to come back down. A lot of assembly required furniture doesn't seem to disassemble quite as well.

For a dresser, what size/shape is the one you're having a problem with and where are you getting stuck in the stairwell (does it turn with a sharp landing or something)?

This is probably about the same size. There's a 90-degree turn in the stairs. The problem is that the ceiling is too low for us to tip it vertically to make the pivot

[takeonyou]

We yanked out the drywall in the stairwell ceiling and got the dresser up that way. But Dh is a painter so drywall repairs are nbd.

[dancingirl21]

Feb 24, 2014 15:29:05 GMT -5 justjen said:

DH is ALL OVER the idea of slicing up our box spring, so that may happen. I guess we have nothing to lose there, since it's unusable at the moment anyway. I have visions of it not working out so smoothly though

But, say we disassemble the dresser, and do get it up the stairs. Eventually I would want a matching bedroom set... what then?

ETA: I guess I'm asking if anyone else had bought new furniture for an inaccessible stairway, and how they went about it.

We also had to saw our box spring in half.  DH then used deck ties to put it back together.  It worked great. 

We had a headboard that would not fit up the stairs.  It's currently in my in-laws storage space.  We will never get it up the stairs.  We seriously considered taking down the railing, but that seemed crazy for a headboard. 

Since then, we have bought Crate & Barrel furniture (dressers) that we have built on our own.  We try to buy neutral enough pieces that we can mix and match if needed, or have gone with white so that everything is at least the same color.

ETA:  I just saw your last post that you have a 90 degree turn with the ceiling being too low.  Exactly our problem as well.  We did consider doing what a previous poster suggested and ripping out the drywall in the ceiling, but again, that seemed like overkill for furniture.

[froggy76]

I just moved and my queen boxspring wouldn't fit up the stairs. After sleeping on the floor for 3 weeks, I ordered this:
www.target.com/p/eco-dream-metal-platform-base-bed-frame-14/-/A-11868465

We've only had it a few days, but it is really supportive and I'm happy with it. We already had a headboard to attach to a frame. It's a lot taller than I realized it would be, though. I think our bed is slightly taller than it was before with a regular frame + boxspring. But there is a TON of room for storage underneath, so I'm keeping it.

[t]

Feb 24, 2014 15:19:39 GMT -5 vanillacourage said:

Other than that - can you partially disassemble the bookcases and then reassemble them inside?  (ETA - or, I agree with your dad.  )

This is exactly what I thought of after reading the OP. PIVOT

[egeiger]

Feb 24, 2014 15:14:57 GMT -5 justjen said:

...of your new house, what are your options?

Things we had to leave on the porch:
-1 dresser
-1 queen box spring (tempurpedic--are they different than regular box springs?)
-3 bookcases

The bookcases are NBD. And I know there is the option of a split box spring, if those would even fit. But the dresser is stumping me. Anything that would fit is realistically too small for what I need, and I don't want the entire family to be doomed to ikea furniture forever. My dad wants to see if it's possible to disassemble the dresser, but this wasn't a "forever" dresser anyway...

I've done some poking around about "ready to assemble" furniture. It looks like some major companies offer it (crate and barrel, maybe room and board?), but there doesn't seem to be a clear, searchable way to determine which pieces these are (unless I'm missing it). Does anyone have any experience with this? Or other suggestions?

It's killing me to have my mattress on the floor and nothing to unpack our clothes into 

My brother cut a hole in the ceiling then repaired it once everything was in.

[sa]

Feb 24, 2014 15:53:08 GMT -5 212 said:

I know someone who has used this company and they called it "miraculous."

nycouchdoctor.com

Along the same lines as this, there are companies that specialize in sawing your furniture in half and then finishing it so that you'd never know.

This was mentioned by some professional interior designers in my classes, and I was skeptical, but they showed us pictures and it was incredible.

That being said, I think that's only worth it if you absolutely love a piece or spent a lot of money on it.  If you're thinking about replacing this dresser anyway, then try disassembling and if that doesn't work, I think you'll have to spring for something new.  

[dr.girlfriend]

I would just do two single dressers side by side or something.