Hanging a Porch Swing Made From an Old Bed Frame
by
Sarah Trop
f you’ve been on Pinterest or googled “porch swing images”, you’ve probably seen bed frames turned into a porch swing. I saw one years ago and fell in love. I wanted a porch swing made from an old bed soooo badly!! I found a bed on craigslist TWO winters ago and actually paid the guy to bring it in the middle of a snow storm because I knew it was exactly what I wanted. You know how they say the shoe makers kids have no shoes… well, this has been one of those projects we just didn’t make time for. We finally set aside an hour here and there and finished it in about two weeks. It would probably take at least a day+ to make the swing and hang it. Having a couple of strong friends stop over would help too!!
Sadly I don’t have ANY before pictures. Just picture an old headboard and foot board. The headboard becomes the back of the swing, and then the footboard makes the front of the swing. We added side boards and wooded slats for the seat. We painted the swing with Benjamin Moore’s Advanced paint in Atrium White.
The tricky part about a swing is hanging it. It is NOT light, super heavy actually. We bought metal eye hooks and attached them to the front and back. We used rope made of poly from Home Depot so it wouldn’t rot. We had to go up over the rafters by drilling through the sheet rock and pushing the rope over the beam and pulling through the other side. We used a coat hanger to make that happen. As you are hanging it, have one person hold the bench one inch higher off the ground than you actually want it while the other person ties the knot at the top. It will drop about 1 inch and be in the perfect spot for you.
porch ceiling
That will leave large holes in the ceiling so we cut little rectangular wood pieces and drilled holes in them, and actually put the rope through that wood piece before tying it off. It worked out perfectly to hide the ugly. All we had left was to trim the rope!
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I need an A-frame to hang the swing from. The facility doesn't allow ceiling hanging.
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