Pulling the wall bed down in our old apartment. Photo by Gillian Stevens for Jenni Kayne

I’ve always been of the opinion that wall beds are a good long term investment. We bought ours with the intent to always be able to provide us with an additional “bedroom” in whatever space we found ourselves in next. I often argued this to others who considered or were reluctant to consider a wall bed to solve their growing-family-in-a-small-space problems. Well we have finally moved (into a 2 bedroom apartment) and moved 2 wall beds with us, so I can officially report back on our findings in doing that. Happy to say that my assumptions were correct. Though with all things moving, nothing is easy but everything is possible with a bit of extra planning and effort.

Moving Wall Beds

We were able to re-move the wall beds ourselves, well Trevor did it with the help of a friend (Thanks Andrew!!!). It took them a few hours. Moving was a bit of an undertaking, We made sure to hire a moving company who was comfortable moving the wall beds. They wrapped each piece in blankets and carefully moved the parts. I would argue this added a couple hours to the moving process as we have 2 beds that break down into many parts. This added additional costs to the move. Everything arrived safely without any damage.

Damage to Walls

I was shocked at how minimal the damage was to our walls. We had our wall beds professionally installed and I was thrilled to know that the repair to the walls would be minimal. I was able to repair the damage myself over a couple of days with some spackling (this one is my favourite) and sandpaper (then prime and paint).

I’ve never felt fully comfortable endorsing a wall bed for a rental situation but if your rental allows you to hang photos or shelving on the wall then the repairable damage from the wall bed is very similar ! Just allow yourself a couple days to repair before you move. I hope more landlords will be flexible on wall damage as families and others can really benefit from the flexibility of a wall bed particularly in this era of working from home. See below for photos of the damage.

wall bunk beds removed from the kids room.

Re-installing Wall Beds

We hired the same company that installed our wall beds to re-install them. It only took a couple of hours (if you are local I can’t recommend Golden Ratio Builders enough). (Note: wall beds must be installed into wall studs for safety). Though we don’t require the wall bunks in the kids room anymore, we own them and didn’t want to take on the expense of purchasing new beds for the kids right now.

Our wall bed allows our bedroom to eventually have multiple functions for us. For now I still put the bed away out of habit and also for the extra open space it provides. I may later add a workspace to the bedroom but for now I’m just enjoying the extra breathing room.

Hope this post is helpful. I would summarize that moving and re-installing wallbeds added a few hundred dollars cost to our move while providing additional usable square footage to our new small space. Not to mention providing an “additional bedroom” for us for over 7 years. My love for wall beds lives on!

If you have more questions about wall beds I did an extensive question/answer post HERE. If I missed anything else you were wondering about please let me know! Hopefully this has demystified moving wall beds a bit!

Putting the bed away…. photo by Gillian Stevens for Jenni Kayne

Photos with me and the wall bed by Gillian Stevens for a feature for Jenni Kayne that you can read over HERE