Bed frame design

Ned Bulken

Member
Messages
5,529
Location
Lakeport NY and/or the nearest hotel
My wife upgraded our middle son's bed recently, he was using a dorm style bunk bed which used sistered 2x4 and 2x6 glued/screwed together at right angles for legs. and a plywood platform holding up the twin mattress. Ugly but functional as he put it.

I've got to build him a new frame to hold up the mattress and box spring, as he's now in a full size vs the twin. Here's my question:

If I can find it, I'd like to use some angle iron to hold up the box spring. I'm figuring that should more than hold up to his weight. I'll be going 'budget' again, using Domestic Conifer, unless I can find some 6/4 poplar for not too much more money. He wants to stain it this time around, so I'm leaning toward the Pine. If he was going to paint it I'd use poplar and be done with it.

I'm planning on a simple loft style with some storage space underneath it: similar to this I found on the web:
attachment.php


If I can't find the angle iron locally would two 2x4's be strong enough if glued/screwed (deck screws up from the bottom) together to support the mattress/box spring and kid(s)? (my 3 boys rough and tumble a lot and I'm certain it won't always be just him on the bed. (let's ignore the fact that he's on the girlfriend of the month plan right now too).

what say ye design guru's? Thanks!
attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • low_loft_clear_400x383.jpg
    low_loft_clear_400x383.jpg
    106.4 KB · Views: 155
  • selections.JPG
    selections.JPG
    7.6 KB · Views: 154
Last edited:
Ned, I was going to build a bed for my daughter, but ended up "inheriting" one from my MIL. I found this plan online that looked pretty sturdy, cheap and looked good. It's a queen, but you could adjust to a full size.

>>>Click Here<<<

Edit: Just noticed they have a detailed plan for a twin and double bed as well at the bottom of the page. Here is a direct link to the double one.

>>>link<<<

Plus a link to the main page with lots of links and plans.

>>>Bed Plans<<<
 

Attachments

  • queen_size.jpeg
    queen_size.jpeg
    21.1 KB · Views: 9
Last edited:
Ned, angle iron should be easy enough to come up with. You could even use an old iron bed frame although that iron is really hard so drilling holes will be a challenge unless you can anneal it first.

No matter what you do there, I would suggest that you plan a couple of cross members under the mattress/box spring. It'll prevent the bed from dropping through if the frame moves a bit.
 
Ned,
I was going to show you the same link that Jeff did. That guy has some pretty cool stuff.

And I think the 2x4 would be plenty, but I wouldn't make it visible from the side like that.

My own bed is a Queen, and the box spring is supported by 2x2's screwed to the side rails. I added a single metal crosspiece (sort of at the 1/3 mark, under our torsos) from a previous metal frame, since I was a bit concerned myself with support. It's been solid for almost 10 years now, and we didn't get it new (used to belong to my sister for probably 10 years before that.)

If I were you I'd mock your ideas up in sketchup first... That photo you have is just a single bed, with no box spring. With a box spring, and a double/full size... I'm afraid it'd look quite a bit odd if you had it tall enough to fit a two drawer file cabinet under it. Not to mention that it might actually be awkward to climb into.
 
Thanks guys,
that's a pretty cool design you linked to. I may give up on the angle iron; that looks nice and simple to build.

Here was my thought putting the 2x4 across the bottom, I could then put another 2x4 on the Inside of each leg to help support the rails. I figured that the vertical one would resist shear, the horizontal would support the box spring, but I didn't want to trust the joint between the two simply to glue/screws horizontally.

As far as having a tall bed, Every bed in my house is tall, we don't have a basement so we just go up with the beds to help store all the stuff that we've accumulated, Adam's is the first one to have a box spring in awhile (they've all been platform beds up 'til now).

I'll have to see if I can get him to do without quite so much storage under the bed, if so, I may build the double as shown, including some of the slats shown (but not all). There's an awful lot of lacrosse and football gear which needs a home, and under his bed seemed the logical place (to him at least, and I figure, hey, if it helps him keep the room organized, so be it)

Dave, no matter what, I was planning on at least two slats to tie the rails together. One bed I had as a teen had a pair of them which had a narrow piece of angle iron on each end. There was a corresponding slot in the support portion of the side rail which they hooked into. I was going to borrow that idea for this bed as well.

And sorry Dave , I'm still a fumble fingers when it comes to .skp files and designs. but I will do a paper drawing to get the proportions right, fear not.
 
here's an idea ned, 2x8 (nominal 7 1/4") for the frame, then glue/screw the 2x4 supports along the inside long sides, (after cutting notches for the 3 cross support members). my couch is built along similar lines, but only with 1x8 oak with 1x3 cleat on the insides of the front and back, and held our pastor (around 300 lbs (136 kilos for those metric folks)) without so much as a creak or groan. hope this helps.
 
Well I showed Adam the two designs, and it looks like I'm going with the regular bed, albeit slightly modified to account for Some storage and the box spring. He's mentioned getting some underbed storage bins, or I could build him some, but basically it will be a normal frame.
 
Well,
thanks to Dave Richards, I managed to cobble together a plan for this weekend's work...

Adam wants the mattress to be 32" high, which leaves just about 14" below the rails, plenty of storage space I would think.

Here's the plan, in jpg and .skp
 

Attachments

  • adams bed.jpg
    adams bed.jpg
    125.8 KB · Views: 24
  • adams bed.skp
    64.1 KB · Views: 5
Top