Converting an old Pine Bedstead to an Electric Bed ...

We have a very solid old pine bed frame, 1,500 mm (5') wide which in the UK is generally called 'kingsize' although in the US I believe it would be a queen.

For various health & comfort reasons, we were looking at replacing it with an electric bed of the same size, with independently adjustable mechanisms, i.e. basically two 2' 6" frames fixed side-by-side.  Such beds are common enough these days and readily available to buy new, and they start at around £600 and go on all the way up to several thousand.  

However, we couldn't find a suitable version with an open base that stands well clear of the floor on four legs in the same way our existing bed does, and which allows us to store all sorts of crap under there.   In addition, all the other furniture in the bedroom is quite substantial and also made from pine, so a modern lightweight fabric-covered bed base just wouldn't feel right in there.

Therefore, I decided to convert our own pine bedstead to electrically-adjustable operation rather than buying a new bed version in a different style.  

There are one or two European vendors I found that sell the articulating slatted assemblies on their own, complete with the actuators and controllers etc but without the rest of the bed frame.   One place stocks them at around £225 each ex-VAT, i.e. £590 in total including £50 delivery.  Allowing £150 each for two new mattresses would have brought the total to around £900, so still around the price of a new mid-range version.

However, I managed instead to find a used electric bed base to use as a 'donor' for the conversion, at £225.  By stripping the mechanisms off this old bed base, we would save nearly four hundred quid.

the donor bed delivered ...

Fig Tree Planter ...

We've a south-facing sun trap formed by the kitchen wall, garage extension, and the eastern boundary fence with our neighbours.

On this small area, we've astroturf laid down on top of the concrete and this is where we've placed our palm trees and other hardy 'exotics'.

To add to the Mediterranean flavour, we've decided to grow a fig tree and so I set about making a planter with an integral trellis.

After playing around with several designs, we decided which one we wanted to go with and then out came the cut-off saw and a batch of our hardwood slats.

Construction was quite straightforward.  We made the trellis fan first, the lower part of which also ties into the back wall of the planter.

forming the fan ...

Financial Planning - 2017 Annual Review

I've now been following our Grand Plan for four years, and here's the annual progress update on the anniversary date of 31 March 2017.

Firstly, the usual pair of graphs of Actuals v Targets :-

SAVINGS POT

SIPP POT

As usual, click on the images for a larger version.

Lawnmower Deck Repair ...

Late last week, I gave the lawns a first cut of the year.  It should have been done three or four weeks ago, the grass was long enough then and the weather not bad, but I hadn't managed to get around to it.

We've an old self-propelled petrol-engined mower, which makes the job very easy.   

It's lost its brand decals, but it probably came from one of the big DIY chains originally.  We'd bought it secondhand around six years ago, and in that time I've made several minor repairs including reconstructing the lever mechanism that controls the cut height and rebuilding the self-propel clutch, but generally it's been a great machine and starts first time every time even after standing unused over the winter months.

Investment Review - March 2017

Here's the spreadsheet summary for the combined portfolio as updated on 31 March 2017.

(click for a larger image)

Making a Garden Drinks Table ...

There was an advert on eBay from a local joiners yard who were selling off 1,828 x 31 x 17 mm wooden slats (6' x 1.1/4" x 5/8"), in a mixture of soft and hardwoods, at only £2 for a batch of ten.

I drove down to the yard and the guy showed me racks upon racks holding thousands of these slats inside an old barn, all brand new.  Apparently, they used to use them for making 6' high fencing panels, but they now use a larger section and so these were all redundant.

He left me to my own devices to pull out what I wanted, and so I weeded out the softwood types of which they weren't many anyway, and came away with 100 unused hardwood slats for just £20.   I'd only wanted ten before I'd actually seen them, but it was too good an opportunity to miss !

I'd wanted a few hardwood slats to make a small garden table, using an old cast-iron parasol base.  I'd bought this cheap years ago, when I didn't really have a use for it in mind but I thought it would come in handy some day.  And today's the day...

I first drew up a basic design of a 600 x 600 mm table top, and cut the slats to size on the cut-off saw.  I sanded the ends and edges of each piece as I laid them out for assembly, and then used another two lengths of slats to screw to the others, to form the table top.   These two runners are attached from underneath, so there are no screwheads visible from the top.   After I'd formed a simple square, I marked off 150 mm chamfers at the four corners and cut them down by hand.

table top profile ...

  

Rescuing an old Wheelbarrow ...

We inherited our garden wheelbarrow from the previous owners of the house - it looked ancient enough then and they obviously didn't even think it was worth taking with them to their new place - but it's served us very well for the last six years.

However, the steel body tray fell off recently when tipping garden waste - the tray's totally corroded around the four bolts which fix it to the tubular frame.

old steel tray totally buggered ....