I am building a bed that will have a birch plywood 3/4in skirt that will go around the bed. It will rest on the floor and become the toe kick. The bed will be fairly heavy.
Depending on what it rests on carpet or wood flooring is it ok to have plywood edge in direct contact with carpet or wood flooring.
Or should I put in legs of some sort?
James
Life is short, so live it.
Replies
It shouldn't hurt a carpet, although the raw edge of plywood is itself somewhat fragile--it will have a tendency to splinter a bit. You can mitigate that problem by using Baltic or Finnish birch plywoods, which have thicker face veneers than the garden variety stuff.
Most any wood floor would get scratched up, however. I would attach blocks inside the plywood frame, around the perimeter, and use padded feet, something like these: http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=2&p=58872&cat=3,40993,41283&ap=1. You can recess the blocks so that the foot pads just barely protude from the bottom.
-Steve
The only problem I see is if you clean the carpets. My wife has a home steam cleaner and does the carpets periodically. Since this makes the carpets very wet the wood can suck up the water and cause problems long term. I had this problem w/ a steel framed couch that has stained the carpets beyond ever getting clean.
I don't know if you're old enough to remember waterbeds, but they used a similar construction for a mattress that was heavier than a conventional one. Most used a cheap and nasty "plywood" made from sawdust and glue, and it stood up well to boisterous use without causing much damage to floors. A true plywood would be more prone to delamination on the edge, and you'd have the usual problem if the bare floor isn't flat of needing feet on the corners to prevent rocking. On carpet it should be fine.
Jim
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