Bed Slats for Dummies

When it comes to DIY topics, we find that there's a certain class of freelancer who just never seems to get it – and by "it," we mean why people might be doing it themselves. They're easy to spot at the niche sites where Leaf Group is stashing all the old eHow.com content, because all too often they expose their basic ignorance in the first couple of sentences; the Demand Media-demanded "introduction." Once one of our staffers has spotted some inanity therein, it's usually a matter of a paragraph or two before the real dumbassery appear. take, for instance, today's DotD nominee, Hunker.com contributor Emily Patterson, and her "What Kind of Wood Can Be Used for Bed Slats?"¹

Apparently unable to imagine anyone actually building a bed, Patterson introduced her topic by claiming that,

"Bed slats may need to be replaced after a few years of using a bed."

Surely, Emily jests. How on earth does a bed slat wear out? Do termites eat them? are they damaged by ferocious nighttime acrobatics? Inquiring minds want to know... Our staffer posited just three reasons someone might need a bed slat:

1. You're building your own bed (not a platform style)
2. The occupants of the bed are so heavy as to need an additional slat
3. One or more of the original slats was lost in a move.

All three of those are much more likely to occur than needing to replace a damaged slat, no? Well, maybe if you have some rambunctious adolescents jumping on your bed... Whatever the case, Emily rose to the challenge – at least she rose as far as she could, given her unfamiliarity with lumber. That's obvious from her statement,

"Bed slats may be cut from ¾ inches by 3 ½ inches lumber, which is available from most major home center stores."

We'd love to see Patterson attempt to buy "¾ inches by 3 ½ inches" lumber – not to mention her confusion when a blue- or orange-vested clerk points her to the 1-by-4s. And then there's her conflation of the slats in a bed frame with a platform bed, as Emily "informed" her readers that

"...3 ½-inch bed slats should be spaced no more than 3 inches apart for proper support of the box spring. "

Sorry, Emily, but that's a waste of good wood: a queen-size box spring needs just five or so slats, although you should have a vertical support underneath the center. Once she got that stupidity out of the way, Patterson told her readers to waste their hard-earned bucks for the slats:

"Pine, cherry, mahogany or any species of wood can be used for bed slats. Pine is the least expensive. However, the species of wood chosen for bed slats may be chosen to match the wood the bed is made from."

Does this moron not realize that bed slats are hidden under the mattress? Who CARES whether they "match the wood the bed is made from"?

Nobody, that's who! What's important is that the slats be well dried and cut from heartwood so that they don't warp or twist. Pine, spruce, and douglas fir are all fine choices because no one cares what they look like – no one except, perhaps, our Dumbass of the Day.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   hunker.com/13403325/what-kind-of-wood-can-be-used-for-bed-slats

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