About 20 years ago I found an old bed frame in my great grand father’s attic.  I have been told that it was used by my great aunt when she was a kid, so this frame must be at least 100 years old.

The wood was in great shape, the only thing I did was to apply some finish oil.  The main problem was to find a mattress that would fit since the frame is both shorter and narrower than a modern full size.   For a while I used half a dozen of beams across and a particle board topped with a cheap foam mattress.  A few years ago, I turned this bed into a kid’s bed so I replaced the particle board by a bunch of thin strips of plywood and bought a latex mattress.  The beauty of latex is that it can easily be cut to the dimensions one needs.

I recently realized that I could replace the plywood planks under the mattress with an IKEA bed base.  IKEA recently changed their models and the latest slatted bed base (LÖNSET) are rather cheap, $60 for a full size bed.  The IKEA frame is simple to assemble and all the parts can be cut to fit a smaller frame.  For this to work, you must make sure you have a strong support beam in the middle and two beams on the sides.

The first step is to cut the side pieces to the right length, chopping the same amount from both ends.  You should then put them in place to make sure they fit properly.

When cutting the ends, you will cut the part with the two holes used to screw the cross beams.  You can keep the left over with the holes and use them as templates to drill a couple new holes at each end.

Once the sides are in place, measure the distance between the sides to cut all the pieces going across (beams screwed between the sides and slats).

After that, you’ll need to drill a few more holes and follow the confusing directions that came in the IKEA box.  For example, take time to notice that all the slats are not the same color and somehow should match the color of the plastic fittings.  I guess this is to provide different levels of support but the difference is frankly not obvious.  Anyhow, now I have a nice IKEA hack custom size slatted bed base (repeat that 20 times, very fast).

For the mattress, I used an other IKEA product with an impossible name: MORGONGÅVA, natural latex mattress.  Latex is really nice because you can cut it to any size you need.  I’ve read somewhere that electric kitchen knives work well.  I happen to have a large knife I used to cut home insulation so I used that (CEPCO Tool IK-10 Insult-Knife, available on Amazon.com).

 

 

 

 

 

 

This mattress is really nice but in a way it’s too nice. The cover for the mattress is quite thick and it would have been impossible to resize it with my small sawing machine. I had to find someone willing to tackle this job and it wasn’t as easy as I initially thought. I went to a couple of cleaners and a few upholstery places but none of them felt comfortable handling this project.  I finally found a great place in Hanover Pennsylvania called Harris Customs Upholstery.  If I had to do this again, I’d pick a mattress with a lighter cover.