Unusual project...

[cfellows]

As my significant other and I have aged, our bed keeps getting higher and higher as we keep buying thicker mattresses and adding foam toppers in the quest to make it softer on our aging bodies.  Recently the wife has begun complaining about the difficulty of getting in and out of bed because of its height.  She wanted me to cut some off the legs to shorten it, but I was reluctant to chance ruining it since I had spent 6 months building it out of solid walnut a number of years ago.

I suggested we replace our existing 9" box springs with low-profile, 5 1/2" units and she agreed, but a trip to the store revealed a price tag of over $400, more than we were willing to spend.  On the way home, the wife suggested maybe we could just cut ours in half.  Yeah, right, I chuckled, unable to imagine where I would even start such a project.  This wasn't the first time she had suggested something that sounded utterly ridiculous.  Well, guess what...  that is exactly what we wound up doing.  Here's the pics.

Here is the second box spring after we removed the 25,000 staples holding the cover on...



Here's a picture of the innards...



Another view...



Here I've begun cutting it in half, one spring at a time...



And a closer look showing where each spring is cut...



Here's how it looks after cutting all the springs and removing the top.  Now I have to remove the residue, yuck, more staples...



All cleaned up, ready to start putting it back together...



And here's the top half back on the base, ready to start stapling...



The first box spring is completely back together and is 3" shorter than before.   This second one is ready to be put back together.  In addition to some marriage points, I did get a new tool out of the deal.  There was no room under the metal spring framework to hammer staples into the wood capturing the foot of each riser.  So, I bought a new pneumatic palm nailer.  It did work just find with the staples once a rhythm was established. 

Chuck

[dsquire]

Chuck

You are to be commended for tackling and completing a project like that. I know, once you started you had no choice because you didn't want to sleep on the floor. If anyone had suggested that to me I would have told them they were crazy and it wasn't going to happen. It just goes to show that SWMBO picked the right guy all those years ago. 

Cheers 

Don

[jcs0001]

Chuck:

You are a glutton for punishment, tackling a job like that.  Never would have thought it could be done without ruining the entire mattress.

John.

[Bogstandard]

Very nice project Chuck, and well executed.

Loadsa smartie points from AND for SWMBO.


Sweet dreams.


John

[DaveH]

Chuck,

A labour of love.

 
DaveH

[cfellows]

As a I said before, the wife does have a high percentage of ideas that ignore the laws of physics, gravity, and other things that are just plain unworkable.  But every once in awhile I have to admit she has a good one.  As I had posted elsewhere, my solution would have been to build two new half-height boxes out of pine and plywood.  But it would have been heavier and still cost around $100, then the problem of trying to sell or dispose of the existing box springs.  Sometimes I enjoy the challenge and the chance to show off a little bit.  Unfortunately, she has learned to take advantage of that! 

Chuck