Thursday, June 11, 2020

Fixes and Fails - Sleep Number bed

I think we slept on our RV's original bed for only a night or two before we decided that bed was not going to cut it.  It was foam and only about 4" thick.  So, we came up with another solution...
We decided to take the Sleep Number bed from our house and install it in the RV.  The problem was where to put the pump/ controller as the engine is under the bed.  There is just a piece of plywood at the head of the bed, so it won't go under anything there.  There is storage under the foot of the bed, but we would need to extend the air hoses and still have to determine how and where to route them.

Lucky for us, Thor installed a "hamper" next to the bed.  It folds out with a hinge on the bottom and was big enough to hold maybe one pair of jeans.

I removed it and used the pieces of wood to create a shelf in the space.

I installed some side hinges on the door, so that it would open like a cabinet. 

This required that I purchase a Forstner bit and jig for drilling the hole.  Not sure, but I might have just given one of those away.  Then I needed to get power to the pump and since there was an outlet on the bottom of the overhead cabinet just above this new space, I decided I could just drill a big enough hole and get the cord through that way.  I know that I had a bit of that size, but after another trip to Lowes, I had the hole drilled.
Here is the cord coming through the counter top and reaching the outlet.

OK, now to get the air hoses from under there to the mattress.



The hoses come out of the center top of the bed, so I ran them over to the cabinet on the side of the bed and drilled a couple of holes to get down to where the pump is now located.  Luckily, I had just bought a bit that worked, so that was nice.


All done, except this bed is a lot heavier than that original foam mattress and it is now difficult to open the storage under the bed.  It has gas struts, but they appear to be rated for 80 lbs each and I guess that isn't enough for the weight of the sheet of plywood and the bed.  

After some googling and an order from Amazon, I now have 2 struts rated at 130 lbs each. (GS-000486)

I may have gone a little overboard as after a few months, it ripped the piano hinge right out of the plywood.  Quick fix after I realized they used like 3/8 inch screws.  I replaced them with 3/4 inch screws and added a lot more.  That is not coming loose now!  I should have went with the 100 lb struts.

Pat


No comments:

Post a Comment