Projects – Page 2

If you've been reading BBD for a while, you know we are into making things ourselves. Here is a an upholstered bed project I stumbled upon on the web. I'll tell you about our own experience creating this bed so you know what to do and what not to do. Assemble the box Our mattress measures 81.5 inches long by 60 inches wide and is a queen. If we did it all over again, we'd definitely reduce the bed's width by approximately 0.5 inch to make the fit between the mattress and the side rails a little tighter. The internal width of the bed box (the length of the head and foot boards) is 60 inches on the plans, while the outside length of the bed box is 81.5 inches (this is the length of the side rails). To secure the corners, I used three #8 – 2 inch screws. Install corner supports The corner pieces were then cut from the leftover scrap from the 2x6 board, which will be installed in the following step. Three screws were driven through each of the box parts to join these corner pieces, which are 5.5 inches long along the sides. To mount the legs, you'll drill vertically through these sections afterwards. I accidentally hit the screws that hold these corner pieces in place when drilling one of the four holes for the legs. As a result, I had to slightly re-drill the hole surrounding the screw. If I were to do it again, I would just use two screws to secure the corner piece, and I would pay more attention to where I put them to avoid striking the screws with the vertical leg hole. Install the center support As the center support, a 2 x 6 is attached. Make sure the 2 x 6 is cut to the box's interior length. Side Supports To install the side support, turn the bed on its side. Drilling vertically with the floor to press against is much easier. Make sure the side support's top is the same height as your 2 x 6. The top of the side rails and 2 x 6 center support should be 2 inches below the top of the bed frame, according to the blueprints. However, I discovered that these specifications were somewhat off because the wood we purchased was not exactly the size that was advertised. Our 1 x 8s for the outer bed frame box, for example, are more like 0.9′′ by 7.25′′. It's not a big concern, though; just make sure the side supports are installed so that their tops are at the same height as the 2x6. Upholster the Bed Frame with Batting The bed frame was upholster with batting using a staple gun. The staples we used were 5/16 inch length. We discovered that longer staples (perhaps with a more powerful staple gun) would have been ideal because we had difficulties getting the staples to hold while upholstering the cloth over the batting. Upholster the frame with the fabric of your choice. You could upholster the entire frame with one continuous piece of fabric if you buy a fairly long piece of cloth. This would eliminate the need for fabric seams. We chose to use less cloth and wrapped the bed frame in three distinct pieces. The two seams are roughly 8 inches from the food board on the side rails. The side rail fabric was put first, followed by the foot board piece. Simply fold back the fabric for the seam and make sure you have enough fabric to have a proper overlap. There's no need to sew. Because you'll have to fold the batting and fabric at the corners, it'll end up thicker there than along the frame. If you have a nice staple gun, that might be enough, but our staples didn't hold, so we had to use short nails and screws to fasten the fabric in the corners. Construct the headboard's frame We followed the headboard plans, with the exception that we did not include the cutout in her blueprints. With the exception of the cutting, I followed her plan specifications to the letter. To acquire exact 90 degree angles, make sure to utilize a square. A crooked headboard is the last thing anyone wants. A close-up of the legs is shown below. The front side of the headboard is the center portion. This is the element that joins the headboard to the bed frame. Wrap the Batting Around the Headboard Because the headboard's back is against the wall, you don't have to bother about correctly upholstering it. Headboard Upholstery Despite the fact that we utilized patterned fabric, we made sure to align the fabric with the top of the backboard.. Leg Holes to be Drilled This is the bed's bottom view, where the legs will be attached. We upholstered the bottom of the bed, as you can see. In order to drill a hole for the legs, we had to cut a hole in the bottom of the cushioned footings. (Actually, I tried drilling straight through the cloth, but that was a bad idea because the fabric began to pull and coil around the bit.) Drilling through the fabric is not a good idea.) Legs should be installed Our bed legs are 4x4's that have been shortened to roughly 5 inches in length. Obviously, one is placed in each corner, but we also placed one in the center of the bed beneath the 26 center support. Kristen used the same walnut stain we used on our kitchen table to stain them dark brown. I used a 3/8′′ bit to drill a vertical hole in the leg. A receptacle for the 2.5-inch bolt was screwed in. That portion, which I can't recall the name of, is what allows us to bolt the leg through the bed frame footings. Place the Mattress Supports in Place We could have put the mattress supports after step 6, but then we wouldn't have been able to attach the headboard and legs since we wouldn't have had access to the structure. As a result, the mattress support slats are installed last. The mattress supports should be attached to the center support and the side supports with 2′′ screws. We experienced issues with the support slats splitting at the ends because we were screwing right towards the end. I attempted to avoid the splitting by drilling pilot holes, but two drill bits were broken. Finally, we gave up and simply stacked the slats on top of the center and side supports, not screwing them in place. We haven't had any issues as a result of not screwing the side supports in. That's all there is to it. In 11 simple steps, you can make your own upholstered bed frame. Our bed set us back roughly $250. The cloth cost around $100, while the rest of the wood and supplies cost around $150. Despite the fact that there are a few things we would do differently, we are quite pleased with how the bed turned out.