Cheap & Chic Platform Bed

This is a quick and easy project with a gratifying and professional looking result.  With minimal carpentry skills, you can create this 'boutique hotel' bed, turning your bedroom into a chic oasis of zen.  Then, divide your mortgage payment by the number of days in the month and say to yourself, 'Wow, imagine, getting this room for only XX$ per night!'.  Don't forget to tip the maid!

Watch for the second installment of this bedroom Instructable: the Cheap & Chic headboard! lol. Coming soon.

I bought two twin foamy mattress covers at a discount store. They were $9 each. I also got a big chunk of fabric (like 10 metres or so) from VV Boutique, scissors, staple gun & staples, and a rectangle of wood as the platform.

Now, I hope I'm not glossing over here, but it really is as simple as building a rectangle. Measure your boxspring, adding 2 1/2" to length and width. We used 4,  8' lengths of 2x10, allowing for an 80 inch length and 60+ inch width.  2x10  may be overkill, but 1x just didn't seem sturdy enough. We toenailed them together and added 2x4 lengths inside for the boxspring to sit on. These are screwed into place.

At this point, drop your boxspring in, just to be sure it's a good fit.  If you need to tweak it a bit, you haven't gone too far that it's a pain in the butt. Boxspring fits? Ok, we're good to go to the next step!

I marked my foam up the middle and sliced up the centre of both mattress pads.

Beginning at the corner nearest the headboard/wall, mitre your corner with foam and start stapling on.  You want to start at a back corner so that if it looks rough, no one will see. (In any case, it's covered by fabric, so the staple job is fairly incidental.)

You can see in the first photo I've given myself several inches excess at the bottom to staple around the bottom edge of the platform. I stapled all the way around, mitring all of my corners.  When I had to start a new piece of foam, I didn't overlap it, just butted the new piece up beside the old. I thought the overlap would have left a ripple and been visible under the fabric. 

I didn't go too crazy with the staples, maybe one ever 5 inches or so.

This step is helpful if there's a second set of hands around, even moreso if you have carpet. Tipping the platform over is awkward and if you have carpet, it drags and does not want to slide helpfully.

Tip the platform over so it is completely upside down. Staple all the way around and tip it back over again.

Measure and cut your fabric.  If you don't have a big honkin' piece like mine, this would be the step where you would plan out where you might overlap pieces 1 and 2, or alternately, sewed them together so that you're working with a long, uninterrupted piece of fabric.  I think overlapping them at a corner would be just as effective.

I started back at the corner where I began with the foam, and starting with a mitred edge, began stapling merrily away.  I really didn't hold back on the staples at this point.  Staple all the way around until you finish up where you started.

So, flip it  upside down and start stapling. Pull the fabric taut over the foam before you staple it, but also kind of gently (if that makes sense). You don't want an exaggerated pucker where you've pulled the fabric too tight over the foam, then stapled.

In the second photo, you can see where I stapled the left hand row (closest to the outside edge), then went afterwards and pulled gently on the fabric in between each staple, and stapled again. This gave a neat, uniform look to the padding, when flipped right side up. There aren't any obvious 'dents'.

Go all the way around, finishing up back where you began. Flip right side up again.

You don't have to stop here. You can add some low, squatty little legs made from pieces of 4x4 or some round knobby jobbies from the lumber yard.  Adding legs may allow you to get rid of the boxspring altogether, however you would need a better reinforcement for your mattress. Further 1x4 strapping laid across your 2x4 boxspring bracing would likely be enough. If you had a king bed, possibly adding a couple of legs down the middle/centre of the bed would not be a bad idea too.