How long does a bed take to assemble?

Retailers quote build times from a factory bench with two people and no stairs. A real bedroom has a chimney breast, a radiator, a carpet that is not flat and a door narrower than the base you are carrying through it.

These are the timings we actually schedule against in London, taken from job sheets rather than instruction leaflets — and the four conditions that reliably push a build past them.

A single or double frame is about 55 minutes: legs and rails, the centre support and its foot, slats, headboard, then a torque pass in sequence. A king or super-king is closer to 80 minutes because there are two centre legs to level and a much larger frame to hold square while the slats drop in.

An upholstered frame is around 90 minutes. The panels are heavy, the bolt covers have to come off and go back on cleanly, and the fabric will show a scuff from a dropped spanner forever.

An ottoman with a single gas strut is around 100 minutes; a double-strut or side-lift base is closer to 130. The struts go on last and have to be balanced, otherwise the lid either sinks onto the mattress or fights you every time it opens.

A standard bunk is around 130 minutes and a cabin or mid sleeper 150, because the safety checks are part of the build rather than an inspection at the end. A high sleeper with a desk or futon underneath is up to three hours. A cot is around an hour; a cot-bed conversion 45 minutes.

Access is first. A boxed divan base or a king headboard up a winder stair with a half-landing turn adds real minutes before a single bolt is turned, and occasionally means the frame has to be part-built on the landing.

Floors are second. Period floorboards and thick underlay mean the centre support foot has to be packed, or the finished bed rocks. Levelling properly costs ten minutes; not doing it costs a callback.

Missing hardware is third. A short-shipped pack stops an amateur build dead. We carry bolts, cams, barrel nuts, lock washers and common slat holders, so most packs still finish the same visit.

Second-hand frames are fourth. A frame that has already been moved twice has stretched holes, missing dowels and no instructions, which is why those builds are charged hourly rather than per bed.

Each additional bed in the same visit costs less and takes less time per bed: one carry, one permit, one set-up and one clean-up. A family fitting out two children's rooms saves noticeably against two separate appointments.

The estimator on every area page converts a bed list into build minutes and shows the slot it needs, which is the same maths our office uses to size the booking.

Mattress delivery windows slip; assembly slots do not. Where the mattress arrives in the morning, an afternoon or evening bed slot is the safe sequence, and it is the reason we hold same-day slots at all.

If the old bed is still standing, book its take-down into the same visit. Stripping, bagging the fixings and stacking the parts is around 40 minutes, and it is far cheaper than a second call-out.

Creaking is almost never a broken bed. It is a centre rail that is not seated, a support leg that does not reach the floor, slats sitting loose in their holders, or bolts tightened one side at a time so the frame locked out of square.

The fix is procedural: build loose, square the frame, seat the centre support on the floor, then torque in sequence and re-check with the slats in. Ten minutes at the end of the build is the difference between silence and a month of noise.