Personally I LOVE a squeaky bedframe. Helps with pacing. My girlfriend? Not so much.

February 8, 2010 3:34 PM

I need to buy a non squeaky bed for under 500 bucks. Any suggestions?

So I have girlfriend. And it's getting serious. But my current bed is kinda creeping her out. She's a little...restrained. And when we are engaged in non-sleep bed time she gets all worried about my roommate hearing the squeaks from my ikea bed. ANd in my new place it's going to be even worse, with the walls being unseparated by the bathroom that's currently there.

Thus the question of the new bed.

Now I know it's the bed because I've got a memory foam mattress and no box spring. And I love me some memory foam. So that's staying. But a friend told me the weight of the memory foam is adding to the squeak so that's going to be a factor in the new purchase.

So is there anyone out there who's had a great quiet bedframe experience that'll take a heavy foam mattress? Ideally for under 500. And ideally kind of modern looking.

Thanks in advance for the help. Fooling around on a floor is fun occasionally but it's no bed.

posted by rileyray3000 to home & garden (9 answers total)

get a box spring, throw it on the floor, ditch the frame
posted by gnutron at 4:08 PM on February 8, 2010

In the mean time, try tightening down everything and spraying down the bolts with some WD-40. Might help mitigate the squeak.
posted by disillusioned at 4:09 PM on February 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

You can probably fix it.

The squeaking isn't the bed frame per se. It's in the places where a piece of the frame is rubbing another piece of the frame, likely at the joists. You can actually fix that in most beds, by putting a bit of grease or thin plastic sheet between the bits of the bed that rub together and tightening all the bolts.
posted by mhoye at 4:13 PM on February 8, 2010

Oh dear god, I hope you live upstairs from me. To answer your question, I think you just need to try out different beds. I have a bed frame from IKEA, and it doesn't squeak at all. Maybe wooden frames would be less squeaky than a metal frame?
posted by bonheur at 4:15 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Seconding tightening up all the bolts on your bed, using WD40.

I'd save up for a bit if you want a really, really nice bed to support the foam mattress. You could certainly get another bed for under $500, but there's no guarantee it won't squeak.

In the meantime, of course, there's no reason why you HAVE to use the bed for sexy time, is there? There's chairs, sofa, cushions, blankets, rocking chairs, stairs, bathtubs, showers, washing machines, carpets...well, you get the idea.

And if your girl is too restrained for all that, you could just put the mattress on the floor for a little while, as gnutron says.
posted by misha at 4:41 PM on February 8, 2010

If you get a platform bed, you will eliminate all of the noise. It is just a mattress on plywood on a frame, and it is comfortable.

I give mine a pounding, and it doesn't wake the kids up. You could, too.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 4:58 PM on February 8, 2010

If you have access to a wood shop, I made a simple but handsome four-poster in a few hours that is so overbuilt it could no more squeak during sex than dance a jig. I started with two 4x4" posts, three sheets of ¾" plywood, and three 2x4"s. Total cost probably $200. MeMail me if you want instructions.
posted by nicwolff at 7:18 PM on February 8, 2010

Avoid Ikea's Malm bed. Argh.
posted by talldean at 7:26 PM on February 8, 2010

I have a handmade platform bed and it squeaks a little but only because I built it for being able to be dissembled easily. Otherwise I would have stuck the whole thing together with wood glue and it would have never squeaked at all. You may want some sort of platform thing like this [or other options on Overstock for platform beds] and just glue it all together.
posted by jessamyn at 8:00 PM on February 8, 2010