Hey all! Last weekend my husband and I decided to make the most of what we had kind of lying around and built our own slatted foundation for our latex mattress. We had an existing box foundation and a piece of heavy duty plywood. Here's some pics to tell the story:
This is what a box foundation looks like. Very thin pieces of plywood spaced out anywhere from 6 - 8 inches apart and covered with a piece of cardboard. All of this is wrapped in a thin piece of foam and a sheet of material.
Our intention was to just add a few pieces of support to the existing base, but when my husband saw how unevenly spaced they were, he pulled out all the slats.
We spent some time deciding on how large of a slat we wanted and how far apart we wanted them spaced. At first we were thinking 4 inch slats, but, having used the sheet of plywood as a base, we decided this would be too close to sleeping on a rock. FYI, sleeping on a piece of plywood over a box foundation is truly like sleeping on a rock - it's hard! We finally decided on 2 and a half inch slats spaced 2 inches apart. We based this on a few designs we found online.
We covered the bottom with the existing cheesecloth to protect our bed base, and covered the top with a very old clean blanket to protect the latex.
All in all, it sleeps pretty much like the box foundation we had before except it offers more support. It does not feel too solid at all. We were both very happy with the result. Also, if we ever decide we need hardwood slats instead of thick plywood, we can swap it all pretty easily. The whole project took around 2 and a half, maybe 3 hours to complete. It also gives peace of mind - we know we have the support we need for the latex, and we're allowing the latex to breathe. I am extremely happy with this project. Believe it or not, we had a good time working on it together too!
This message was modified Apr 5, 2009 by quefret
