EASY HOSPITAL BED

Wanna lean up and play video games in bed?

Grandma wanted the Grandson to be able to do his video games in his own bed, to kinda get him out of ours. So she asked me to fix him up a tilt up bed-head.

I figured it had to be easy to make, and cheap!

He hasn't tried it yet, but it looks pretty serviceable to me.

You will need:

1 ea. regular twin bed with a flexible mattress. (No Box Spring.)

2 ea 48" Piano Hinges. (With a zillion short screws.)

Some 1/2" OSB or plywood to fit in bed under mattress, cut to just fit inside the Bed Frame. I painted it with some extra paint from the garage to prevent splinters in mattress, sheets and fingers, color being irrelevant to me.

Cut the OSB to fit in the bed frame, with one piece, (the Head Piece), separated at about 24" down from head board from the rest of the bed. (See photos.)

On that Head Piece, from the top outer corners, measure in 10" and mark it on both sides. With a straight edge or chalk line, draw/snap a line to the lower outer corner at that "about 24"" cut, of the Head Piece.

Cut both of these right triangles off of the Head Piece. Do not toss them, they are now the Head Piece supports.

With a Hacksaw, cut one of the Piano Hinges in half. Screw each half to the underside of the cuts for the triangles, but with the barrel of the hinge up in the cut. This means extending the triangles about an eighth of an inch longer than the main head piece, or cutting that cut twice to make it about 3/16" wide. The finished connections will have to fit down into the bed frame.

Cut the second hinge about an inch narrower than the bed, and screw it where the head piece meets the rest of the bed, all the way across the bed. I suggest putting this one on with the barrel up into the mattress. Nobody will feel it through the mattress, but it prevents ripping the hinge screws out of the board because of the way the hinge folds..

In the sort of center of the upper portion of the trapezoid that is the ply head piece, on the underside, I stapled a piece of extra truck tie down strap. Since the staples aim upwards into the ply, and I added wood glue to the strap, all the pull stress will be into the long way support of the connection. So glue and staple about eight or twelve inches of both ends of strap to the underside, (both ends, cut with a red hot old butter knife), of the small part of the trapezoidal head portion, between the two triangles. Allow some several inches of extra strap to feed over the edge of the ply, so that it can become a handle to pull up the head piece when the incline is desired. This handle is flat enough, and flexible enough, to just lie under the mattress without being obtrusive. I suppose you could make it long enough to pass up over the mattress, but I didn't.

Now just lay all this under the flexible mattress. When the kid wants to sit half way up, he can lift his head for help, or just get on his knees and pull on the strap just under the mattress. Then get out the Mario Bros.