When I was about to leave for  university back in 2004 I didn't want to be separated from my drumkit. I was also going to a tiny bedroom in a shared flat in Edinburgh which featured an old iron bed-frame with one of those plastic mattresses they use in prisons. So the bed was both uncomfortable and encroached into the space where my drumkit was supposed to be. To solve these problems I made a bed out of scaffolding with the idea that I could accommodate the drums within its skeletal frame. At the same time I could go from my single prison bed to a luxurious 'double futon' whilst increasing the floorspace in the room.  

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Traditional high beds are made out of wood and are generally pretty unwieldy and inflexible. I wanted something which could either be a high bed for my drums to go underneath or a double four poster for when I got more space. So I phoned a scaffolding company in Glasgow and spent my last £100 saved over the summer on 4 standards, 4 ledgers and 4 screw jacks. I had to cut down the ledgers and weld them back-together without the lugs going squint with respect to each other, this was quite precarious as a fraction of a degree would throw the posts way out over such a height. 

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The bed was one of my few home project successes. It provided excellent space for my drums in Edinburgh and I took it with me to England when I moved for my first job after uni. The frame provides loads of room when in the high bed configuration. Even with the bed lowered onto the bottom scaffold lugs, you still get way more accessible space compared to a boxy divan style bed and mattress. 

 

I still have the scaffold bed and it is currently in the four poster configuration. I've made various improvements over the years.  In particular getting a decent mattress for it whilst putting stiffening sections into the wooden slats to stop them bowing.  I sometimes think back to the student days when it was in the high configuration, I was lucky not to fall out when getting in drunk or out hungover. I didn't have any safety rails which seems mad looking back. But it is quite remarkable how people have a natural tendency not to fall out of bed. A skill pretty essential when sleeping in one of those suspended mountain canvases which give me vertigo just looking at.