Get Rid of the Bed Frame!

Hello all!

Let’s talk about beds today. I have a double bed. I got my bed over 6 years ago, second hand, cheep as can be because I was a starving student at that time. It was a decent bed for what I paid. Wood headboard and footboard, red-ish (kind of rust-coloured) painted rails, very comfy mattress. Everything a moderately picky, cash strapped girl could ask for.

Problem is, the frame (headboard, footboard, and rails) was not very cute, even with a bed skirt covering up the rails. I wish I had a picture, woops. So, 6 years later, I got rid of it!

Here’s what I did to elevate my bed off the floor: Legs!

 

No more ugly, rust-coloured rails running all the way along the bottom of my boxspring! I attached the legs directly to the boxspring with nothing more than my handy-dandy power drill and some screws.

Well, not quite... The problem with all the ready-made legs I encountered was that they were all 6” tall. I have under bed storage totes which are also 6” tall, so I needed to make these legs taller. The legs I used were purchased from Rona for $20 (for a pack of 6). I went to my local timer store and bought 6 fence caps, at 20₵ each. Being the same thickness as a 2x4, that gave me an extra 1.5” to work with.

Also, since I wanted to banish my bed skirt, I decided to upholster my boxspring. This was simply done with a white double flat sheet from Walmart (for $10), and a lot of staples. So the total project cost was about $32+tax. See how I did the corners?

But back to the legs.

First I painted the fence caps white with some acrylic paint I had around the house. Once dry, I drilled 3 pilot holes in each cap for the screws, and 1 hole for the leg. I screwed the caps directly into the underside of my boxspring (I had to use a small spacer under the cap to make the boxspring surface even, you can see it poking out in the picture), then I hand-screwed the legs into the caps.

Finally, I flipped the whole thing over, repositioned the mattress, put some sheets on it, and stood back to admire my work.

*Note: I used 6 legs for my double bed. I read on a few different sites that queen and king sized beds should have a 7th leg right in the center of the boxspring to give additional support. That leg would not need to be a stylized leg, but rather could be just a 2x2 piece of wood cut to size.

Now that my bed had some legs to stand on, I was able to start on my DIY upholstered headboard. Which I actually didn’t do for another 4 months or so, but you can see the bottom of it in the picture above.

Also, if I had a larger bedroom, I have a very nice bench I’d like to put at the foot of my bed in lieu of a foodboard, but that will have to wait for a larger living space. Right now it sits behind my loveseat in my living room. See:

Its cushion will probably get reupholstered at some point.

So that's that! And think, the next time I move (Eeek! That's only 2 months away!) I won't have to disassemble and reassemble a bed frame. Simplicity is delicious.