Rope Beds: Take 1

Today Dad and Andrea came up for a visit, so I got them to help me with the final stages of my rope beds. The beds are made out of 4x4s for the legs and 2 inch thick poles for the head, foot, and sides. All this is held together by a whole bunch of rope woven like a basket or hammock. I'd already drilled the holes in my legs in a friend's garage (Yay for friends who own a drill press! Thanks Thorkil!) but I needed some help with the rope. I had a diagram I'd made to follow for the weaving, but it really looked like a 2 person job.

Last night I dragged Andrea out to the garage and we wove a bed together. The design involves weaving to the head and sides but not to the foot. Instead a thick dowel is laid across the bed about 8 inches above the foot, and the rope weaves to that. Then that dowel is lashed to the foot pole, and that rope can be tightened as the ropes stretch and the bed begins to sag. This genius design is courtesy of Cariadoc, who even has a period drawing that shows a bed designed in such a way!


We stole one of Haley's mattresses off her bunk bed and put it on the rope bed to try it out. Pretty darn comfy! Too bad the bed itself was so wobbly! Haley elected to spend the night in the garage, on the rope bed and slept very well.


In the morning, while Andrea and Haley went shopping, Dad and I went into project mode, and I got him to help me rope the second bed. We did a much better job (outside in the daylight) and the ropes actually ended up meeting back together in the end, which hadn't happened with the other bed. So I talked him into reroping the first bed with me too. They looked fantastic!



Unfortunately, they were wobbly enough that while I thought Haley was probably ok, I didn't feel comfortable sleeping on it -- if I jerked suddenly in a dream the legs might collapse!

I knew I needed to alter my design, but how?