How to Anchor IKEA Furniture: KALLAX MALM and BILLY Safety Fixes

The furniture in your child’s bedroom is probably the most overlooked hazard in your home. Not the outlet covers you spent twenty minutes debating at the hardware store. Not the cabinet locks. The KALLAX loaded with board games. The MALM dresser your kid has been eyeing like a climbing wall. The BILLY bookcase that sways slightly when you bump it.

CPSC reports one child death every two weeks from furniture, TV, or appliance tip-overs. Nearly 80% of tip-over fatalities involve children age 5 and younger. And half of all child tip-over deaths happen in the bedroom, the room where dressers and chests are the dominant furniture. These numbers are not abstract. They describe ordinary rooms in ordinary homes, with ordinary IKEA furniture that came with anchoring hardware still in the plastic bag.

Why IKEA Furniture Tips Over in the First Place

Flat-pack furniture is engineered for stability on a level floor with nothing on it. The moment you load a KALLAX with books, cube organizers, and a row of Funko Pops, the center of gravity shifts forward. Add a child pulling on a lower shelf to reach something, and you’ve created a lever. The unit doesn’t need much encouragement.

MALM dressers are a specific concern. Chests, bureaus, and dressers caused 36% of all U.S. tip-over deaths in CPSC’s latest reporting, and 81% of those deaths were children (CPSC 2023 Annual Tip-Over Report).

The reason is simple: drawers are a ladder. A child opens the bottom drawer, steps in, opens the next one, steps up. The weight shifts forward. The dresser goes with it.

BILLY bookcases are lighter than either of the other two, but height is the variable that matters most. A taller unit gives a child more leverage per pound of force. A fully loaded BILLY at 79 inches tall is not stable without anchoring, full stop.

IKEA includes wall-anchoring hardware with all three of these units. The instructions are in the box. Skipping the anchor step voids the product’s safety rating. It also leaves you with no argument if something goes wrong.

What You Need Before You Start

Get the right tools together first. Rushing this step is how you end up with a pilot hole in the wrong place or an anchor that misses the stud by half an inch.

Tools:

• Stud finder (electronic, not magnetic)
• Drill with bits sized for your anchor hardware
• Screwdriver or drill driver
• Pencil
• Level
• Tape measure

Hardware:

• The anchor kit that came with your furniture (check the bag before assuming it’s missing)
• Replacement kit from IKEA if yours is gone (search your model number on IKEA’s website; the kits are inexpensive)
• Additional L-brackets or furniture straps rated for the piece’s weight if you want a secondary anchor

One thing I learned the hard way: the anchor kit for a KALLAX 4x4 is not the same as the one for a KALLAX 2x4. Verify the model number before ordering a replacement.

Locating Studs and Marking Your Holes

Drywall anchors alone cannot support the force of a falling furniture piece. A toggle bolt rated for 50 pounds in static load will fail under the dynamic force of a 150-pound bookcase falling forward. Your anchor must go into a stud.

Studs in most American homes are spaced 16 inches apart. Run your stud finder horizontally across the wall at the height where your anchor bracket will sit, typically 2–4 inches below the top of the furniture. Mark both edges of the stud and find the center. Do this for two studs if possible. Two anchor points are always better than one.

Once you’ve marked your stud locations, hold the furniture in its final position against the wall and mark through the anchor bracket holes with a pencil. Move the furniture aside. Double-check your marks with the stud finder before drilling anything.

Drill pilot holes slightly smaller than your screw diameter. This prevents splitting and gives the screw something to bite into rather than just spinning.

Anchoring a KALLAX

The KALLAX comes with a wall attachment fitting, a screw for the fitting, and a screw for the wall. The fitting attaches to the inside top of the unit, and the wall screw goes through it into the stud.

Position the KALLAX where you want it permanently. These units are not meant to be moved once loaded, and repositioning after anchoring means patching holes and starting over. Load it lightly first to confirm you’re happy with the placement.

Install the wall fitting inside the top of the unit per the printed instructions. Hold the unit against the wall, use a level to confirm it’s plumb, then mark through the fitting hole onto the wall. Drill your pilot hole into the stud. Drive the wall screw through the fitting and into the stud.

In my experience, children can defeat adhesive strap locks early, my older daughter did at 26 months, which prompted me to audit every piece of furniture in the house. The KALLAX in her room had the anchor hardware sitting unused in the box underneath it. I installed it that afternoon. The unit does not move now when I push the top with both hands. Before anchoring, it rocked noticeably when loaded.

One additional note: if your KALLAX is being used as a room divider and is not against a wall, you need a different solution. A freestanding KALLAX in the middle of a room is not safe in a home with young children regardless of what you put on it.

Anchoring a MALM Dresser

MALM dressers use a tip-over restraint that attaches to the back of the unit and screws into the wall. IKEA has updated this hardware over the years, so if you have an older MALM, verify that your restraint matches the current specification on IKEA’s website.

The process is the same: locate the stud, mark the wall, drill the pilot hole, drive the screw. The restraint strap should be taut but not so tight that it pulls the dresser away from the wall. A slight bow in the strap is fine. A loose, dangling strap is not doing anything useful.

Because half of all child tip-over deaths happen in the bedroom, the MALM is the piece to anchor first if you can only do one unit today. The drawer-climbing scenario is real. In my experience, children move fast and don’t telegraph their intentions, my younger daughter emptied an under-sink cabinet in the time it took me to answer the doorbell. They’re curious, and they don’t understand that the dresser will come with them.

After anchoring, keep the heaviest items in the bottom drawers. This lowers the center of gravity and reduces the forward-tipping force even if the anchor fails for any reason.

Anchoring a BILLY Bookcase

BILLY uses a wall attachment fitting similar to KALLAX. The fitting screws into the top panel of the bookcase, and a separate screw goes through it into the wall stud.

The challenge with BILLY is that the top panel is relatively thin particleboard. Don’t overtighten the fitting screw or you’ll strip the hole. Snug is enough. The wall screw carries the load, not the fitting-to-bookcase connection.

For BILLY units taller than 45 inches, I recommend a second anchor point at mid-height if the unit has a fixed shelf you can attach to. This is not standard IKEA guidance, but it’s good practice for units that will be loaded with heavy books. A single top anchor on a 79-inch BILLY loaded with hardcovers is working hard.

If you have multiple BILLY units side by side, anchor each one independently. Don’t assume that a connected row is self-stabilizing. It isn’t.

Renter-Friendly Options and Their Limits

If you can’t drill into the wall, furniture straps and tension-based anti-tip devices are your next option. They are not equivalent to wall anchoring. They reduce tip-over risk. They do not eliminate it.

The best renter-friendly approach combines a furniture strap attached to a stud (even renters can usually negotiate one small hole per room with a landlord) with thoughtful room layout. Keep MALM dressers away from beds and cribs. Keep BILLY units away from windows and climbing surfaces. Keep KALLAX units away from areas where children play on the floor directly in front of them.

If your landlord will not allow any wall penetration, use two furniture straps in an X-pattern, keep the furniture lightly loaded, and accept that you’re managing risk rather than eliminating it.

Testing, Maintenance, and Documentation

Once anchored, test every piece by pushing the top forward firmly with both hands. It should not rock. It should not shift. If it moves at all, stop and recheck: confirm the screw is in a stud, not just drywall, and that the fitting is tight against the furniture.

Inspect anchors every 6–12 months. Seasonal humidity changes cause wood to expand and contract. Homes settle. Children bump furniture constantly. A screw that was tight in October may have loosened by spring. This takes five minutes per piece and is worth doing.

Take photos of each anchor installation before you push the furniture back against the wall. Photograph the stud finder reading, the pilot hole location, and the installed hardware. Keep these with your receipts for the anchor kits. If you ever need to demonstrate that you installed the hardware correctly, you’ll have the documentation.

The CPSC’s Anchor It! campaign has been running for a decade. The hardware is included in the box. The instructions are printed and clear. Anchoring these three pieces of furniture is an afternoon of work that you do once and then don’t think about again, which is exactly the kind of safety fix worth doing.