Flobear and Ploshkin regarding getting a Horn cabinet up or down stairs, Horn’s recommendation to me when I was helping an elderly friend, was if it has a pull out section to one side, to pull this right out and deal with that bit separately. Of course take everything out of the drawers and remove these as well, and yes I would also take the doors off as these could easily get damaged in moving the cabinet. Hope this helps.
Ploshkin I too have a Horn cutting out table, and found that my husband had been a bit heavy handed in forcing the extending flap down and thus buckled one of the hinges so much so it was very noticeable and therefore made the top uneven. Horn were a great help and sent me a new hinge which was easy enough to fit, so the flaps can come off, and that will reduce a lot of the weight. Incidentally I bought my table second hand, and when we arrived to collect it found it was on the top floor of some flats – why hadn’t they mentioned this before! Anyway with a bit of ingenuity a wheeled barrow (like a porter’s barrow) was used and padded out with garden chair cushions to protect the table and then some of those bungee rope thingys that were put around everything to hold in in place, and then two men carefully sort of bounced it down the numerous flights of stairs – luckily no damage was done.
Now when my cabinet was delivered new straight from Horn themselves, there was just one man doing the delivery, and oh couldn’t he manipulate this unwieldy item. Firstly he had to remove all the packaging (cardboard), and then had to turn the cabinet totally over so that he could put the wheels on, then of course turn it over again, and he made it look so easy – well he was so used to doing this. So knowing he can do this, I now understand why they say delivery upstairs is not always possible and is up to the driver.
I wish you both lots of luck getting your cabinets/table up the stairs and into your new sewing rooms. Flobear, if you can get hold of a Horn catalogue it will give all the necessary measurements for each cabinet – that might help you, or alternatively measure accurately the awkwardness of your stairs and then speak to Horn themselves, the boss David is very helpful, in fact it is his family’s business, and I believe I had my cabinet delivered by his son Jason – who again is very helpful.