First, I want to express my thanks for this great website! For the first time, I felt like I was able to make a truly informed decision on a mattress purchase! (Incidentally, I purchased a Charles P. Rogers Powercore Estate 9000, which is currently on order…)
When it came to the foundation, considering the $520 price tag (and that was after a 20% discount!), I decided to build my own. With the bed that I have, the foundation would be completely hidden, and I just couldn’t see spending this for nothing more than a solid platform for the mattress to sit on. After doing some research, I was glad to see that others have done the same thing… I was inspired by the posts from Lucky8926 and TX_Man, as well as the designs of other foundations on the market. I thought I’d share a few photos of my design, in case it’s helpful to anyone else…
So that I can easily make it the exact height I wanted, and so that it would not be too heavy, I used mostly 2x4’s to build the “frame”. (Home Depot has a doug fir 2x4 stamped “Burrell” on the end… I don’t know why, but they are like half the weight of other 2x4’s, and a fraction of the weight of 2x8’s, which I also contemplated using.
I think the design is pretty clear from the photos… This is a king-size foundation which I made in two halves, each 38" x 80". I cut and put together all the “side pieces” and “end pieces”, joined them together to create two rectangular frames, cut and screwed down a total of thirty-two 1x3’s for the slats, and then placed a final 2x4 under the center of the slats for support. A few notes:
– You’ll notice that on the top of the side pieces, instead of using 2x4’s, I joined together (glued/screwed) a 1x3 and a 1x4, which left a 1" notch, onto which the slats were placed.
– I found that pocket screws provided for tight joints, allowed me to tightly clamp the work while drilling/screwing, and allowed me to strategically place the screws so that they didn’t interfere with each other.
– I made a pair of 2" spacers that made it easy to place the slats at exactly 2" apart (the minimum required by the Charles P. Rogers warranty). I was very tempted to use a nail gun to nail down the slats–which would have been a lot faster than pre-drilling and countersinking 64 screws, and probably would have worked fine–but I played it safe and used screws to ensure the tightest possible joints.
– When placing the 2x4 support under the slats, I turned the entire unit upside down (top of the foundation on the floor) and placed as much of my weigh as possible on the 2x4 before pocket-screwing the ends into the side pieces. This minimized any bowing of the slats (and any small gaps between the slats and the support) and created a surface that was as flat and stable as possible.
– After placing the two halves of the foundation side by side in the frame, I covered them with a king-size, fitted, white flannel sheet, which fit perfectly and held the two pieces tightly together.
– While I’m happy with how this project turned out (and even happier about the ~$450 that I saved), I should point out that, in the end, this took the better part of an entire weekend to build (from materials procurement to cleanup). This may be due in part to my perfectionist tendencies, but getting a good result requires hand-selecting every piece of lumber, making precisely-measured and square cuts (lots of them!), and making sure that every joint is square and plumb, which takes time, especially when dealing with large pieces!
The total cost came to about $75, including lumber and screws.
I hope this is helpful!
Will try again shortly…