[catalema]

just moved this past weekend and was very excited to put together my bed. I found out that the metallic pieces of the bed were lost in the move. I live in Colorado and have no IKEA store close to me.
I called ikea direct and they told me that the piece that goes from the head board to the foot board they sell, but they don’t sell the metallic pieces that go on the side boards and hold the mattress. I looked on the instructions and clearly there is no part number for those pieces.
Any idea of how I can safe my bed? The other option is to get rid of it and the bedside tables – but I really love my bed…

[Chuck]

Welcome to IKEAFANS, catalema.

The pieces you're missing are not sold separately, but come as part of the frame purchase and are packed in with the side rails. They are NOT specific to the Malm bed, so it's possible (but not likely) that you could find them from a secondary source.

You could make a pretty good imitation of them using a couple of 1x2's or 1x3's as a ledger board, which you'd screw into the sides of the bed using 1 1/4" screws. You need to be sure you install those pieces level both along the side of the bed and to the mid-beam.

When you try this, use the holes in the side rail as a guide - the top of your ledger board should be about 1/2" below the set of holes you'd be using for the long "L" bracket.

Because you're missing the metal rails, you won't be able to secure the slats to the rail using the plastic hardware bits supplied by IKEA. You can use some screws to this, though - screw through the top and bottom slats on each side into the ledger board. Because you're screwing so close to the end of the slats, make sure you drill a pilot hole through the end of the slats before you drive the screw, so you don't crack the slats with your screw.

[catalema]

Chuck,
Thank you so much for your advice. You gave me a lot of ideas. I think that my frustration was not letting me see that there were several options.
I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks again,

Catalina