Bed frame disposal in Nashville: what each type costs

The short answer

Carried from any floor, disposal included, with a $75 per-visit minimum. A $68 metal frame on its own is therefore a $75 visit; send it with the mattress and you pay the item prices.

Why the price splits the way it does

It is not about the mattress size. It is about what the frame is made of and whether it breaks down.

A metal or platform frame at $68 is bolts and rails. It collapses flat in about four minutes and two people carry it down a staircase in one trip.

A solid wood, upholstered or storage frame at $126 does not collapse. The upholstered ones in particular are a rigid box: a padded headboard, side rails and often drawers underneath, assembled in the bedroom and not intended to leave in one piece. A king version at $152 is simply a bigger rigid box, and that is the one that will not fit round a landing.

An adjustable base at $118 is the other awkward category. It is heavy, it has a motor and a power supply, and the hinged deck flexes in the middle, which makes it a genuinely unpleasant carry on a stair.

The Nashville staircase problem

This matters more here than in most cities because of how the infill housing is laid out.

In the tall-skinny duplexes across The Nations, Cleveland Park, Eastwood and Salemtown, the bedrooms are on the third floor and there is one staircase with a switchback landing. The handrail takes three or four inches off the run. An upholstered king frame went up those stairs during construction, before the rail, and it is not coming down the same way.

It comes out in pieces instead. That is included in the price. A king solid or upholstered frame is $152 whether it walks out whole or gets broken down on the landing, and there is no stair charge either way.

In the older bungalows in Sylvan Park, Lockeland Springs and 12 South the issue is different: a narrow hallway and a bedroom door that opens inward, so the frame has to be turned in a space about four feet square.

Take it apart first if you can

Not required, and it does not change the price, but it makes the visit faster and lowers the chance of a scraped wall.

• Metal frames: undo the four corner bolts, fold it, done.
• Platform frames: usually a dozen cam locks or hex bolts. Keep the hex key.
• Upholstered frames: the headboard almost always unbolts from the rails, which is the single most useful thing you can do. A detached headboard and a rail set go down a Nations staircase far more easily than an assembled box.
• Storage frames: pull the drawers out and carry them separately.
• Adjustable bases: unplug it and make sure the power supply and the remote go with it.

If it was assembled in the room with hardware you no longer have, leave it. We break it down.

Bunk beds and cribs

A bunk bed is $123, or $148 for a solid wood or loft version, and it is one of the few items where disassembly genuinely is the whole job. Bunk beds are bolted through, often with the ladder and guard rails integrated, and nothing about one fits through a standard interior door assembled.

A crib is $67. Both turn up constantly in the second-bedroom clearouts that come with families moving from a bungalow in East Nashville out to a newer house in Nolensville or Spring Hill, where the kids' rooms are a different shape and the furniture does not follow.

Worth knowing: safety standards for cribs and bunk beds have changed over the years, which is part of why so many older ones get disposed of rather than passed on. Donation centers are frequently unwilling to take either.

What it costs with the rest of the bed

Frames rarely go alone. Literal sums:

That last one sits between the half truck at $431 and five-eighths at $513, so if it fits in half a truck, $431 is the better booking.

The free routes

Better odds than a mattress, which is a low bar, but real.

A solid wood frame in good condition will sell or donate, and Nashville's secondhand market is reasonably active because short-term rental operators across East Nashville and Wedgewood-Houston refurnish constantly. Donation centers along Charlotte Pike, Nolensville Pike and Gallatin Pike will take a frame they can resell, unlike the mattress that was on it.

What does not move: anything with a damaged upholstered panel, anything flat-pack that has already been disassembled once, and bunk beds. Give a listing one weekend, then stop.

Curb set-out depends on your service address and building type. Check your current Metro bulky-pickup guidance, and if you do put a frame out, put it out the morning of collection. Upholstered panels soak up a Nashville afternoon storm and do not dry.

Booking it

Tell us the frame type, the size, what floor the bedroom is on, and whether the mattress is going too. That is enough to price it and to bring the right crew.

Third floor of a tall-skinny or a ground-floor unit in Antioch, the price is identical. No stair charge, no charge for breaking a frame down in the room, and disposal included.

Frequently asked questions