Walnut bed frames

Assembly

Stand the headboard and footboard first, then drop the side rails in and tighten the corner bolts by hand before any of them go fully home. Snugging one corner all the way down before the others are located is what causes a rail to sit proud.

Lay the slats in last, evenly spaced. They are not fixed on purpose — a floating slat deck flexes with the mattress instead of pressing on one line.

If it starts to creak

Almost every bed creak is a bolt that has backed off a quarter turn, not a failure. Check the four corner bolts twice a year; that fixes it nine times out of ten.

If a slat is the culprit, a strip of felt where it meets the rail silences it permanently.

Mattresses and box springs

The slat deck carries the mattress directly. You do not need a box spring, and adding one usually raises the mattress above the headboard line the frame was drawn for.

For the oversize sizes — Wyoming, Texas, Alberta and Alaskan King — measure your mattress before ordering. Those sizes vary by manufacturer and we cut the frame to the mattress, not the other way round.

Moving house

Take the bed apart rather than carrying it assembled. Dragging a made-up frame through a doorway puts all the load on the corner joints, which is the one thing they are not designed for. Keep the bolts in a labelled bag taped to the headboard.