I built a platform bed because I don’t know where people by furniture. 

IKEA is the only store with furniture that I don’t mind.  Their furniture is functional and doesn’t try to make the homeowner look more interesting than they are.  Bedroom furniture is the worst.   Stores sell bedroom sets that look like they were build from wood salvaged from dilapidated Amish barns or rescued from Belgian whorehouses.  

Here’s my platform bed when it was nearly complete.

My floor looks terrific, but don’t get distracted.  It is not a large bedroom, so I needed storage that was practical without looking silly.  Two IKEA 6-drawer dressers fit underneath, but they are not structural.  It was easier and cheaper to buy a couple of IKEA Stroopwafle dressers, than to build a dozen drawers.

I’ve been using the windowsill is an expedient headboard, but after 15 years, I’m rearranging my bedroom.  As I shop for headboards, I learned that I don’t know what a headboard is, or what it’s for.  Most of them are just little walls.  Where do people charge their phones and put their lamps or clocks?

I looked up ‘storage headboards’, and found those silly models shown above.  The first one has ‘hidden storage’ that can’t be accessed while in bed, and really stretches the meaning of ‘hidden’. 

“Uncle, where do you hide your coffee cups?”

“They are concealed behind this wooden panel.  There is a handle for your convenience.”

“Wow, when I stand in your kitchen, I can’t see any plates, or cups or pots and pans.  Everything is hidden, like you’re a double-naught spy!”  

Anyway, I don’t believe anyone has that many books without a reading lamp, and what’s with all the superfluous crap?  At least the center headboard suggests a backstory.  There is a little ice cream bowl for the little spoon and a big ice cream bowl for the big spoon.

Like so many things, headboard design peaked in the middle of the 20th century.

Available at West Elm for fourteen hundred bucks.

My brother and I had headboards similar to this, but we busted them up with a claw hammer and hatchet.  I don’t recall why.

Where do normal people keep their flashlight, TV remote, phone, handgun, box of tissues, CPAP and clock radio?

My next project is to fabricate a headboard.  I was thinking about the design and layout, but now that I’ve done my research, I realize that I shouldn’t put too much thought into it.  Nobody else is.