My best friend had leftover pieces of a broken twin bed frame that she asked if I would like before she threw out. Of course I said yes, and they sat over here for weeks while I considered what to do with them.

From the get go, I knew I wanted a dog bed frame in my living room. All the projects I have been working on the past year have really brought that room together, and a nice formal dog bed would complete the room nicely!

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To determine the dimensions I required I first needed to measure the bed I intended to place in the frame. Roughly 3 years ago (maybe longer now) I got a 3 inch mattress topper from the AS IS section of Ikea for $60 (Tussoy). It was used as a trundle under my former couch/bed. When the couch/bed went away, and my Friheten manifested into my life, that topper was stored away. I pulled it out recently with the idea I would put it on top of the sofa when my niece and nephew had sleepovers, but I quickly realized it was redundant. The sofa was more than cushy for children under 7.

I decided to fold the mattress in half – getting a total of 6 1/4 inches of memory foam squishiness. While it couldn’t rival the expensive bed of our doggie dreams, Big Barker, it got us closer for much less cost.

The most amazing part of this, is that Ikea sells sheets at the exact size of a folded in half twin mattress. How bizarre is that? They have this adjustable toddler bed that works that way. The LEN sheet set comes with one small sheet to fit when folded in half, and one standard twin sheet. What it does NOT come with, and this bothers me IMMENSELY, is a pillow case. I did, however, manage to snag a pillow case from the AS IS section for a whopping $0.10. While it does not match, it coordinates, and that soothes my orderly heart.

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Since I was folding a twin mattress in half, I figured I would simply cut one of the side boards in half. Worked great! Step one done. I used this chop saw instead of a circular saw because it would cut a straight line more easily.

I was able to reuse the original hardware and attach the pieces to the headboard with it.

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I then measured between boards and cut down the other side board to function as the bottom of the frame. Because the boards are rounded with a bump out I had to remove sections from either end to help them fit into the frame. I used the saw to remove what I could and then worked with a chisel and hammer and ultimately a exacto knife for the last bit. Please, use caution with a razor knife. I stopped before that point, and came back to it with fresh hands the next day.

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Once the pieces were shaved down and would fit together I screwed them together with new screws because they were the correct length. I could not find scrap/reclaimed screws that would work.

So at this point we have this guy:

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Cool. It’s all framed in, but, uh. There are legs in back and not in front Tami. Yeah. I realized that eventually too. I considered adding legs, but realized I didn’t want the dogs jumping on and off anything more than they had to because of repeated impact damage over time. There would still be plenty of air flow without the tall legs.

I removed the head board piece and cut down each leg using the chop saw and reassembled the frame. I then cut down pieces of wood to use as slats across the bottom. The lighter colored pieces came with this scrap bed frame, the darker pieces came off the grey panels I won in the recent auction and used to make a bench. I save everything!

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Here we go! It fits perfectly in the corner as I hoped it would. I plan to paint it this summer. It may not be beautiful yet, but it’s certainly functional and this bunch seem to be very happy with me. $14.99 for the sheet set, with one sheet for them, and one sheet for me, and a $0.10 pillow. I’m not counting the bed itself, as I bought that years ago. $15.09 dog bed upgrade.

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Have you built anything for your puppers? I’d love to hear about it!

*of note, this was written and completed pre pandemic.