Modern Platform Bedframe
30 Dec 2020(Originally did this in September but didn’t publish until December) I hate to admit it but I’ve been sleeping on a mattress on my bedroom floor for the past 3 and half years. Honestly I haven’t minded it, in fact I enjoyed it. There’s something about being close to the floor that’s great. It’s easy to roll out of bed. It’s fun to face plant into bed after a long day. With a frame it’s one less piece of furniture that needs to be moved.
But I’m 31 now and that means I need to grow up and put my mattress on a bedframe. It couldn’t be any old bedframe like the old metal frame with box spring I had when I was growing up. No it had to be modern, simple, fit my aesthetic, something I’d actually want, and most importantly low to the ground.
I forget exactly what inspired me to start this project, it might have been a loving prod from a friend… or most likely ads for Thuma on instagram that got me thinking I could build something myself. I really liked the look and wooden construction of the Thuma bed. The interlocking joints are slick, reminiscent of Japanese Joinery. However I was looking for something lower and more platform-esque. I made some sketches in my notebook and perused Google images for inspiration. A DIY bedframe from diycandy caught my eye and I decided to use it as the template for my frame.
I had to adjust the dimensions for my queen mattress versus the king that the design was for. I also made some tweaks for the size of boards that I was getting. This was all done in my notebook so I could reference the sizes when I bought the wood from HomeDepot. The wood I used was poplar. I would have doubled the cost of the bed if I had used mahogany, maple, or cherry. With a good finish poplar will look just as good in my opinion. HomeDepot cut the boards to rough lengths for me. I then did all the finish cuts with my brothers table saw referencing the dimensions from my notebook.
This is a dry layup of the bedframe. The main structure of the frame is two layers that overlap in the corners to form box joints (I think). The frame is glued and screwed together but the corners are only screwed together so that the whole frame can be disassembled. As you can see the the upper boards are smaller than the lower boards to give a ledge for support slats.
With everything fitting together correctly I proceeded to the glue up. This happened over the course of a few evenings. I was working a lot of hours at this point in the year and could only work on the bed frame for maybe 30min to an hour in the evening a couple nights a week. The layup actually lended itself very well to be done in sections.
The center support beam is screwed into the main frame structure at the front and rear. I was a little aggressive with the drill and split the wood.
There’s a 3rd layer of wood on the bottom of the frame. The boards are smaller than the layers above and inset from each edge. These pieces tie the frame together and give some structure for the legs to attach to. Personally I don’t think this extra layer in necessary but I went ahead and added it any way. Which leads to my one gripe about this bedframe. THERE ARE TOO MANY SCREWS! I was really hoping this frame could have been just as slick as the Thuma. I will have to address that if I ever make a version 2 of this frame.
Continuing on. The next step was to add the legs. I got these sweet hairpin legs from diyhairpinlegs. They definitely fit with the mid-century modern look I was going for. They have tons of colors, lengths, and other styles for DIY furniture builds.
Once the legs were on, I flipped the bed over, put the slats in, and took a nap. Yes I took a nap on slats. It was not very comfortable but I needed it (being exhausted from my regular job). I was started awake like 30 minutes later by my housemate asking if I wanted to play MarioKart or something. He proceeded to tell the rest of the house that I had fallen asleep on the slats. It was a good laugh but I was semi sore the next day.
The last steps were sanding and finishing. I sanded the parts of the frame that would be visible with 80 up to 220 grid to even things out and then get it nice and smooth. I thought it would be cool to try out a DIY stain as well. Turns out you can make stain from steel wool and vinegar. You put some steel wool and vinegar in a jar and let sit for a couple days and then remove the steel wool. I don’t remember the full details, but I think it’s something along the lines that the vinegar steel solution forms iron acetate which reacts with the wood altering the color. I applied the stain the frame and it gave it a gorgeous reddish amber tone almost like mahogany. The results were pretty dramatic. The stain also behaves very differently depending on the base wood. I applied some to cherry and mahogany and the wood turned almost black!
Here’s the finished shot again! I think it looks great. It’s simple, modern, and low to the ground. It’ll be very easy to move as it is flat if the legs are removed. I’ve been sleeping on this for 3 months now and can say that it is an upgrade from my previous situation. Check “Having a bedframe” off the being an adult list.