This post has been a long time coming.
Last October (7 months ago) my friend, Traci, mentioned the idea of my making an upholstered bed frame for her and her husband’s master bedroom. They’d tried one from West Elm but the bed wasn’t really meant to accommodate a boxspring and the assembled bed wound up sitting too high, so she wanted to model it after the West Elm one but custom to her needs.
Traci chose the Camel linen from Gray Line Linen – great quality, GREAT price. Like $9.75 a yard great.
And so 3 months ago I gathered my materials and started work on the bed. If you follow me on Instagram you might remember these couple of shots:
I had the bed mostly finished and then Traci and I started playing the open weekend game. And wouldn’t you know, we were on pretty much opposite schedules for the next two months.
The whole family headed out to her house, about an hour away, a few Saturdays ago and I finally assembled the bed. And not without a hitch either.
First I screwed the legs in too high and had to re-drill holes (the first ones were, luckily, still covered by the frame). Then screws kept breaking…not stripping, actually breaking and getting lodged in the wood. I have never had that happen before and still don’t know why.
Then I got the whole bed assembled but the top was wobbly and really needed metal corner brackets on the inside to hold it tight and together. But at this point it was practically dark, the hardware store was closed or close to closing, and my daughters were nearing the point of hysteria from hunger, so I had to stop for dinner and leave that last task to Traci.
Then…after she got the brackets installed and assembled the bed with boxspring and mattress, her husband sat on it to put on his socks and it collapsed under him!
Eeeeeeee…
They wound up installing the metal frame they had from before inside the upholstered frame so the metal is actually supporting the weight of the bed and the upholstered frame is really just there for looks.
So…it seems I am not ready to share a tutorial with you on how to do this since my final product had its fair share of issues.
It does look nice, though, and is at least achieving its purpose of being pretty! Here are a few assembled shots Traci’s husband, Colin, took for me after they had things all put together.
Such is the hazard of doing things yourself (or hiring a do-it-yourselfer friend, in Traci’s case). I do love the finished look and am SO glad the metal frame fit inside to correct what this bed lacked in muscle!
