Making a Wooden Futon Frame

A few weeks ago I looked at my friend Peter's wooden futon frame and observed that the design was really quite simple. Actually, the design seemed so simple it seemed like something that I might be able to replicate with relative ease and only a few tools.

Of course as I haven't made much furniture my claim that I would be able to easily make a wooden futon frame was met with some hesitation and suspicion. Even my pricing of lumber and buying a mitre box and saw didn't seem to allay fears that at best this project would end with a pile of partially used lumber and stripped screws.

Through all of this doubt I remained firmly committed to the idea and confident of my abilities, even though I haven't done much woodworking since my Home Maintenance class in high school.

On Tuesday I finally got around to picking up the required materials: 3 2x4s, 8 1x4s, 1 1x2s, 50 screws, and 6 nut/bolt/washer sets.

That afternoon I laid things out as best I could without cutting any of the wood and did my best to picture how the item would come together. Without much hesitation I then started working on the project by cutting the 2x4s down to size and then drilling holes in them to allow me to use the nut/bolt/washer combos to create hinge effects.

The next major step was to attach the 1x4s to the 2x4 sections to create the areas on which the pad was to rest. As expected, this all went quite well.

Of course, as I didn't make any plans or take any measurements from Peter's futon I did eventually run up against a problem when I found that some of the 2x4 sections were to long to allow the frame to lie flat on the ground when in the bed position. To fix the problem I had to remove the 2x4s from the 1x4s and cut them before re-attaching them. (Considering that I didn't have any plans or specs I was pretty pleased that this relatively minor and easily rectified problem was the only real problem that I encountered.)

Once the fram was constructed I attached sections of 1x2 the 2x4s to hold the back of the frame in the couch position. The next, and last, step was to cut wedges in some of the 2x4s to act as resting places for the previously mentioned 1x2s so that the couch position could be maintained. And even though I had to make the cuts freehand they turned out remarkably similar to one another.

Anyway, feel free to check out the time-lapse video of the event. As you can see, the frame is really quite simple and easy to construct.



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In case you are curious, it does feel pretty great to have made a functional piece of furniture. I presume this sense of accomplishment is similar to what knitters or sewers feel when they make a wearable piece of clothing from materials that originally seem completely unlike anything even remotely resembling clothing.

The only the the futon is still missing is a proper pad, though a fully functional/comfortable arrangement has been rigged up with a thing foam mattress and a think memory foam mattres pad.