Waterbed on the Homestead

Bob and I have slept on a waterbed for about 25 years.  It helps so much with bone aches and pains if you can sleep well at night without pressure points, and that's exactly what a waterbed does for us.  

A few weeks ago, we woke up very early in the morning to the sound of what we thought was rain.  After a few seconds we realized that it wasn't raining but there was water falling inside the bedroom.  Our 12 year old vinyl waterbed mattress was pouring out water like a faucet!

The mattress had become brittle and it cracked right along one of the corner folds.  We knew we wouldn't be patching that one!

Have I mentioned how much I love Amazon Prime?  You pay an annual fee, but in return there are a lot of benefits....like NO SHIPPING FEES.  Plus I don't have to leave the house to buy what I need.  Plus most things I order arrive at my house within 48 hours.  I love Amazon Prime and Amazon Pantry.  We had the new liner and mattress a day later...

It takes about 5 hours to put the new liner in, get the mattress set, and filled and we would have been done.

But we never do anything the easy way.  We decided it was time to get rid of the old MDF waterbed and build a new one.  If only we had thought of that before we ordered the queen sized replacements....we could have bumped up to a King.  Oh well, you know what they say about hindsight....besides, I'm not sure our room is large enough for a king sized waterbed.

So Bob came up with a plan....

We decided to get all new lumber for the project, which is something we don't do often.  We decided to make this one deeper than the previous one, to accommodate a memory foam topper; and I wanted to keep the natural wood grain rather than the black lacquer of the previous bed.  These boards have beautiful grain and I wanted to showcase it.

The process of picking the right boards, measuring, cutting....and we had the pedestal supports done.  Once Bob had the pedestal frame done, I decided to paint it black so that it disappears under the bed.

The frame for the bed itself took days of sanding....especially since we kept getting interrupted by rain.

Once we were done sanding I started playing with stain colors.....and got busy staining, more sanding.....and then applying clear coat.

 Now to get it all inside.  First we assembled the pedestal and supports....

Then added the frame and heater....

Spreading out the liner and filling the mattress....

And for now we're using the old headboard....but we're planning to build one that matches the bed.  For 10 nights Bob slept on the couch and I slept in Rylans' bed.  I can't tell you how happy we were to FINALLY have another good nights' sleep!

We made the bed using 2X10s...so it's an 8" mattress topped with a piece of 4" memory foam, and covered with down comforters and down pillows.  Comfort at it's finest.

I guess I could have actually made the bed for the picture....nah.

Work hard sleep hard, that's my motto.