Hey All, I'm going to build a bed for the lake. Its a queen, so the mattress is 60" long x 80" wide. I've built a few beds before and often struggle with some common dimensions. I realize that these are all infinitely variable and there is a very wide range of sizes that would work just fine. But...are there rules of thumb for things like:


  • Finished height of the mattress
  • How much oversized should the opening be? IE for a 60" x 80" mattress, is an opening of 61" x 81" sufficient, too big, too small?
  • I'm going to make the legs 3 1/2" square. Thinking I'd set the rails in 1" from the outside face. Does this seem appropriate? Should they be closer to center, closer to the edge?
  • How tall would you make the headboard / footboard vs the finished height of the mattress?
  • I think I've always overdone it with the cross supports; on my king bed I think I did ~9-10 1x3" supports. What is necessary, knowing that more is fine, but just more materials?
  • I've always used the bed rail fasteners (not sure if that's the right name...where the metal bracket with two tabs is recessed into the rail and the female part is recessed into the legs). I was thinking about trying bed bolts just to try something new; any reason to use one over the other?