Ok, to level with you; our box spring, had seen better days, and had developed some week spots and a bad squeak over the last 14 years. This has lead to some bad sleep lately.
Now we don’t have the money right now to go out and buy a new set. One night flipping through some magazine, Jan and I saw some new beds are not even coming with the box spring, just a futon type mattress on a flat surface. I thought: I could do that! after all, our mattress is still fine.
About 8 years back the hollywood bedframe gave out (and got recycled into a new fireplace bezel in the family room). so i went down to the hardware store and picked up some 4x4’s and constructed a basic frame. This will also be the basis of the new frame (shown below).
First step is to make better legs then the crude wood ones. unfortunately the current legs were also the main connection to hold the sides together.
I found some wide angle iron and cut them to with 3 1/2 inch lengths.
For the feet I decided on ball bearings; with will allow the bed to not damage the floor,or our feet when we stub them, and to let it slide rather easy across the wood floor.
I got some help form Sam in cleaning up the steel pipe.
Pipes cut, bearings picked out and angle pieces are ready for the next step.
I wanted to make sure the angle pieces had enough grip to the wood, so 10 holes were drilled into each piece (5 on each side).
minor note: not 2 minutes after this picture was taken, by Sam and I was telling him how dangerous a drill press is. then the drill catches on the steel, spins (slamming into my palm) , breaking the bit and then flings the piece across the bench. left we with nice blood blister.
Ok, all the angle pieces are cleaned up and drilled time for some welding!
Each piece of pipe is 17 inches long; this makes up for the loss of the box spring; plus the old leg length; minus the ball bearings for the feet.
I made a three divots in some scrap metal to hold the bearings in place while being welded. this also kept all four feet the same.
Note: to weld on bearings or any other heavy steel, it needs to be hot first, other wise the weld will sputter and never hold. I break out the torch first and heat them up to an reddish tinge, I crank my Miller wire feed up to half heat, and the weld just flows in.
Ok, legs attached.
At the foot of the bed I was going to make a pull out drawer for Jan’s shoes (Note: ran out of time this week end to build the actual drawer, so it’s a shelf for now.)
I like rounded corners when ever possible; So I heated up some pipe cherry red, and just bent the ends up using a screw driver shoved down the pipe
I added some smaller extensions to the ends so I can get the 8 inch clearance below the wood.
Brace bars on and frame for future drawer in place.
only thing left was to screw the top wood down. but silly me, I forgot to snap a picture before putting it back in the bedroom.
How well did it work? I slept better with a firmer flat surface. Jan said: she did too, I offered to get one of those pads for her side if it end out being too stiff for her comfort level.
The whole design was rather simplistic, but it gets the job done and only $34 for the 2 sheets of plywood needed, every thing else I had.
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