A week or so ago the mattress that I ordered for the Sofa-bed got manufactured and delivered. I was able to go on and do the adjustments and tweaks to the project with it in place. After establishing that it fit perfectly and that it would fold around the slat frame as designed I first worked on getting the alignment of the trundle to the fixed frame correct.
I had essentially guessed at the mounting position of the casters on the trundle based on pressing one into the carpet. I couldn’t press hard enough to simulate someone sitting or lying on top of it so I was off by about 1/4” and so the trundle was scraping the carpet after being pressed down with enough weight. I uninstalled it and flipped it over and added strips of 1/2” plywood under the casters and then I used the adjustable feet in the fixed base to get the perfect alignment so that the trundle slides in and out easily.
I then added the pins to the front of the trundle to connect it to the last section of slat frame. This worked great and keeps the slats aligned and they move consistently with the trundle when opening and closing. You can still raise and lower the seat to get into the storage in the trundle and the seat just drops back on the pins. I may epoxy the pins into the trundle at some point but it might not be necessary.
Next, I added the locks on the front of the trundle to ensure that it wouldn’t roll out when the sofa-bed was closed.
Finally, I installed the reading lamps with USB charging ports on either side of the headboard.
The next thing was to attach the mattress to the slats frame so it would bend the right ways when we closed the sofa bed. I had thought that since it was a sofa-bed mattress it would come with some kind of straps or ties already attached to it, I was wrong. So, plan-B was to order a custom futon cover and my very talented wife modified it by making and attaching ties to the cover at all the positions we needed. I installed D-rings around the sides and top of the slats frame to tie them to. It works great, not pulling too hard but keeping the mattress in place and curved around the slats frame as it is closed or opened.
So it is essentially complete and in use, we’ve put away the guest bedding in the headboard cedar chest, and some framed pictures and other stuff in the storage under the seat. I may come back and just round some of the outer corners of the slats frame and perhaps do more about the opening/closing process. I think we’re going to see how things go for a bit in order to decide.
I’m really happy about how this came out and how well the design plan worked out in actual implementation. That’s it until the next project!