After having weeks of overcast, cloudy weather with snow storms, I was finally able to snap a few photos of the new bed. I truly love snow, and I'm not complaining about the weather, I've loved every minute of it. But unfortunately, overcast skies delay photography somewhat.
Anyway. Here it is, my "new" bed! I love it. It is the best bed I've ever slept in and I hope that it'll last for the rest of my life. Which is actually plausible because this thing is solid Engineering. Engineering with a capital E, yes.
The frame for springs is made of steel tubes with thick walls, or solid steel rods (that thing is heavy!), and there is no wear in the springs that I could see. And will you look at this!
The sheet of springs bows up! These extra springs pull it down a bit, but they still bow up without a mattress. It just leveled when I put my heavy latex mattress on top, no sagging whatsoever.
This is how the spring frame connects to the headboard and footboard. The frame has a hooked tab that fits in a slot, and that's it. Simple. Assembly should be easy, right? It took me about half an hour to finally get it together. The tabs had bent slightly and that meant that they had to go into specific slots in a specific order. Did I mention that the frame is heavy?
It is so heavy that I could not carry it, I had to slide it from the hall to the room, that's how heavy it is. I almost gave up, but I persevered because I didn't fancy sleeping on the floor. Once I hit upon the right order, and the right tab/slot configuration, it was easy to wiggle the thing together. I don't think that I can take it apart again, the fit is so tight. As far as I'm concerned, it can stay assembled for ever.
This is the spring configuration. I've never seen another spring bed like this. The daybed frames of Bauhaus style that have come up on auctions have had the ordinary kind of springs of that time — stretched intertwined coils of iron wire. I've slept on a bed with those springs and they sag badly, rust badly too. I am really impressed with the design of this bed. It is about 80 years old, and it doesn't even creak!
I was a bit apprehensive about sleeping on the springs instead of slats. I'm used to a very firm mattress on top of slats that have no give. So I figured that I'll first put the mattress directly on top of the springs, and if it's too soft, i'll put the slats in between. Turns out, that the slight bounce of the springs is really good for my back.
The first few nights it felt really odd to sit down on the bed and the bed moving down, or to lay on the bed, and it being bouncy. I've gotten used to that, and my back loves that slight give. I still hate beds that are too soft because they hurt my back (especially crappy coiled spring mattresses), but this mattress and spring firmness combination is absolutely perfect.
It also looks just smashing next to my night table. The headboard and footboard are made of chromed steel tubes with a black lacquered plywood. It has some wear, but I like that. I am really happy I bought this bed. As soon as I saw it come up on the auction house, I knew that this was the right one.
There were some tense moments when other people tried to overbid me, but I had put in a high maximum bid, so the software just kept overbidding them. In the end, I paid about twice the price of an IKEA single bed frame for it. But it's going to outlast any IKEA frame, and it's made my back happy, so it has been totally worth it.
Oh, and that lump under the duvet is Sona. That's his preferred day time napping mode now.