It all began with me leaving my bed at my old house. It was an Ikea Lillehammer $90 bed for the frame and $30 for the slats. And I thought, I’ll just get another. But Ikea had replaced it with a brown coloured equivalent called Eina ($139) which was of even lower quality.
Then I got the wrong sized sheets – super single instead of single and thought of upgrading a few more centimeters.
Looking at the Lillehammer, which was a four sided frame on four legs, I thought, this shouldn’t be too hard.
Naturally, I used the Internet to do my research.
I vacillated between the Pipe Dream Bed at Instructables, David Nunez’s Meat Cart Bed which seemed like a lot of fun, to the Floating Bed Platform from the book Hand Made Modern that I didn’t have to buy to make this bed, thanks to Martha Stewart.
I actually drew out the plans for my Pipe Dream Bed in my dimensions with modifications. to make my bed exactly the way I wanted.
In the how-tos of making various metal beds, the topic of cheap kept coming up. But the structural fittings they used (from KeeKlamp and Nurail) were quoted to me at $75 a piece. I hadn’t even asked for the price of pipe.
What was going to be a cheap bed started to move into the range of $500. Yes, you get a metal bed, which will be the hardiest of beds, and it could be extended by adding more pipe and joints if you moved up to a King. But it was more than I was willing to spend.
The Meat Cart Bed would’ve been the last resort. Putting together wood would be possible. But there were two things I didn’t quite like. We can’t get really nice wheels in Singapore. Getting lockable wheels is another issue. Getting lockable cool wheels is yet another. But I really did like the idea of a handle on my bed. If I had carpet in my room, it would’ve been a stronger maybe.
So, my bed design search ended where it started. With the Floating Bed Platform.
Well, I finally did it. I constructed my bed as I wanted. It took 6 – 9 months of thinking, weighing pros and cons, studying, but it is done. And simply, it is a platform on legs.
It’s so simple, no one wants to sell something like that.
The options on the market were unacceptable because I didn’t want:
- Big headboard, padded, leather monstrous things
- Wooden headboards designed to look “country-home-ish”.
- Legs that could been seen from normal eye level.
- A wooden box that went all the way to the ground, because it would look ugly on an uneven floor and are dust traps.
- Legs that are near the corners where your toes are sure to hit.
- The platform to be larger than the mattress.
- Fussy wrought iron designs.
It’s so simple, no carpenter would do it for me.
The only one who came back with a quote for something that would’ve been okay, but not exactly what I wanted would have cost me S$400.
So on 17th February 2009, I decided I would get the wood and make it over the weekend. The next day, I went to the industrial park to look at the cost of wood. Not as cheap as another source. (And I found out later why that was so.)
Then I went to look for plumbers pipe with flange. The hardware shop was so keen to do business with me, he asked me why I didn’t go to Ikea and get stuff 3 times. He quoted me for each leg, pipe and flange, $15 a piece. I needed 8. This was reduced to $10 a piece. I hightailed out of there.
I was going to find another solution. I headed to another shop, to find an ugly leg. Stainless steel. $7 a leg. Still too pricey.
I went home. I decided, I would have to go to Ikea after all. $15 a set of 4 Capita cabinet legs, I could get 8 legs for $30.
So this was it. I planned the rest of my week. I’d get the supplies the next day, work on the bed over the weekend. But I totally forgot I had a seminar from Friday to Sunday. 8am to 11pm. Thwarted again.
23rd February, after baking a pumpkin pie, I went to Ikea, got the legs. In Singapore, they don’t have the 8″ Capita legs, unlike in the US. Then, I headed to Ban Heng Leong Trading at Syed Alwi Road, got my wood cut to my specifications.
Nearby, from another shop, I got stainless steel screws. I didn’t calculate properly and got too few.
I headed back to Ang Mo Kio to get wood glue. I was going to be back here again to get my trim later.
So here are my plans, assembled from bottom to top like a sandwich: Top sheet of 107x190mm fancy plywood (was Nyatoh, I changed it to Ash) to be stuck onto 107x190mm 18mm thick plywood cut in the middle along long side, stuck and screwed on top 107x190mm 18mm thick plywood cut in the middle along the short side. As I was ordering, I chickened out. I didn’t think I could fit that one piece of fancy plywood in the car. So I had it cut down the middle along the long side as well. I was not comfortable with this. More cuts means more errors and less precision.
I was going to start work on the bed the next day. But I’d gotten everything together so quickly, it was only 2pm and I was sure I’d be able to get the bulk of the bed done.
So I laid out the two pieces of wood that were cut along the long side. Then I placed on top the two pieces cut along the short side. This would be the bottom of the bed.
I did some mild sanding, but stopped as the sander was ripping out a very poor quality veneer of the plywood. I also noticed that the ply pieces were not consistent. Indeed there were gaps between the layers. This, I found out later was the production quality of China plywood. Indonesian plywood or waterproof plywood would have been better and each layer more consistent. This was the type of plywood that I’d passed over. It would’ve cost me $31 more. Would I regret this $31 savings? Only time will tell.
I proceeded to measure out how I’d screw the top and bottom plywood pieces together. I’d decided that each side of each half would have four screws. Each half would require 16 screws for a total of 32 screws. I only got 30. Very clever.
Pre-drilling a hole for each screw made things go much faster. Then I took off the top piece (which would be the bottom) squeezed out some glue, laid it back on top and screwed down the whole thing.
In my effort to bump up the centre lines, I made an error. The edges were not smooth. This would affect my trim later on. I should’ve worked on adjusting the four pieces so that the outer edges were flush.
(Above, you can see the bottom of the middle half and the bottom of the bottom half already glued and screwed in. Are you getting the picture now?)
After getting the top and bottom together, I went on to put on the legs. 8 legs in total. I would have 3 legs along each long side. The 4 corner legs would be 5″ from each side, leaving 2 placed right on the seam of the plywood, giving it support. The last with two legs were placed in the centre of each half. (indicated by the circle in my plans) You can see in the picture below how my sanding ripped off the thin veneer. Crappy China made stuff.
(I don’t know why Tricky insisted on being right next to me as I worked.)
Despite repeated measuring, it’s hard to drill in a straight line and the flanges were not always placed perfectly along the markings.
(8 legs affixed. The two legs of the corners are not in this picture.)
This part took me a total of 3 hours, with a half hour break for the rain.
(Seeing the end results. So close, yet so far.)
I was out of glue, 2 screws short with no trim.
I went back to the industrial park and got one more bottle of glue, ordered the trim and got the 2 more screws. As I was getting the glue, I noticed a bracket. One thing that held me back from making this bed was the lack of strength in the middle of the bed because of the cuts of the wood. So I got this additional bracket to place right in the middle of the seam of the bottom most piece of wood. With the bracket, I needed more screws. So back to the nuts and bolts shop I went. I learnt that nuts and bolts shops don’t sell nails.
It’s frustrating to get trim in Singapore. Unlike in the US, they don’t come in different woods to match. They’re all Nyatoh.
Indeed, I was having a hard time finding finishing nails for the trim. These are the sort of nails with a very small head that when hammered in, disappear into the wood. I was told that no one uses these things anymore. People only use air guns. (You can kill people with those because they don’t shoot air.)
I wasn’t about to buy an air gun. Thus far, all my electric tools – screwdriver (also doubled as drill) and sander, I borrowed from my sister.
So I went into a cabinet maker’s shop and asked him about it. Here I learnt that a finishing nail is called “wu2 tou2 tie3 ding4”, literally “no head metal nail”. Actually, through these renovations, I’ve learnt useful terms like “bai2 kan1” for stainless steel. “sen4 siew4” for rust. I don’t know if the han yu pin yin is right. But I’ve gotten by asking if things will rust and so on.
Anyway, the cabinet maker was nice enough to inform me that you could use the air gun nail with a hammer, because, (pointing to an air gun) “you don’t have that.” And he gave me a whole stick of air gun nails. I offered to pay for them, but he waved me away. What a nice guy. If not for his information and help, I think I would still be wondering today, how to get that trim on.
As I said earlier, the more cuts in the wood, the less accurate the measurements would be. And the fancy Ash plywood top was not really cut well. And I had to make some homemade putty (glue and sawdust) to fill it in. I didn’t do too great a job on that.
(Uh, yeah. That’s pretty much the detail of the finished product. Trim done. Lousy homemade putty and you can see a bit of the air gun nail. I don’t think the Nyatoh/Ash combination is all that bad.)
Putting on the fancy plywood took the longest because I had to weigh it down and wait for it to dry. The actual work was only about twenty minutes each side because squeezing the thick glue out of the container is hard. And finding all sorts of furniture and bricks to weigh it down took time.
Finally I did the trim and ran out of glue halfway.
Back to the shop with glue and varnish and completed the thing. I varnished all the metal bits as well to prevent rusting. I varnished the bottom twice as well to help the cheap plywood hold. Incidentally, this is what I do with all my Ikea furniture. I varnish all the cheap chip boards, compressed woods etc. I find the wood lasts longer and there is less dust from wood disintegration.
I’m happy with my bed. I jumped on it a few times (without mattress) and I leapt into bed (with mattress). It holds well. And I’m glad I got those Ikea adjustable height legs. The floor is so uneven in one corner, I’ve had to lower the leg a good centimeter.
Total cost $185.15
- Ikea Capita 16cm legs (8 pieces) $30
- Cut plywood $68
- Cut fancy plywood (Ash) $20
- Nyatoh trim $13 (with GST)
- White glue $2.20
- Stainless steel screws (30 pieces) $3
- Extra stainless steel screws (3 pieces) $0.30
- White glue $2.35 (with GST)
- Flat bracket $0.50 (with GST)
- Glue $2.80 (I bought this from somewhere else)
- Varnish $13
- Brushes, thinner etc $10
- Petrol money $20 (ballpark figure)
- Finishing nails $given
I think it’s a good price. I used thinner, brushes etc already available in the storeroom and I don’t think I spent that much on petrol. So those figures are quite liberal.
(Yes, I need new sheets)
(The bed will look better when a super single is on it. The wood should disappear so it appears the mattress is on nothing. If I had the skill and proper tools, I’d even go so far as to make round corners.)
I like this bed so much (even though I’ve not actually slept in it yet), I feel like making another one without all the mistakes. The beauty of this design is it can be made for Queen, King, it’s so versatile. It’s heavy, much better quality than an Ikea bed. And… it’s ready for me to move up to a super single mattress soon…
Well, I’ve waited for the platform to dry. Tonight, I sleep on my hand made bed for the very first time. Is this what honeymoon night feels like?