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If you use a normal bed, it will have a framework underneath, and there's always
some way of attaching things to a frame. My design is for a metal frame 33 inches
wide by 81 inches long by 14 inches high. I added a ½-inch convoluted bed pad and a 3-inch latex foam mattress to the 4-inch foam mattress the bed came with, then added 10-inch leg extensions as well, so the mattress top is 31 ½ inches from the ground for easy mount and dismount even with a bad back. Now that you know what I did to make it comfy on top, and high enough to make using it nonstressful for the back, you should know how I attached a screen holder. You have a different bed, so you'll need to modify the design to fit your bed frame. The idea is to get the lighted part of the screen about 1 inch above the top of the bedclothes, and to get the screen about 1 ½ horizontal inches from the side edge of the mattress, and to get the center of the lighted screen directly in front of the eyes of the person on the bed. It doesn't matter if you use a laptop or a flat screen monitor. The screen holder is 2 feet wide and made of 3/16-inch nice plywood that is offset from the bed 3 ½ inches by one-by-fours. It has a 2-foot-long screen platform made of a two-by-two fastened to the top offset and covered with a piece of foam rubber 2 inches wide, ½-inch thick, and 2 feet long. There are three ½-inch dowels drilled and glued into the top offset to keep the screen from tipping forward (the plywood keeps it from tipping backwards). The two dowels near the head of the bed must be wide enough apart so that they don't conceal any part of the lighted screen. See our material about monitor covers, because that's what the little ledge is for on the outside of the screen holder (the ledge is two-by-two and the guard fastened to the outside of it is 3/16-inch plywood). Helpful hints: • If your laptop has a glide pad, turn it off because it can cause weird events due to the collection of static electricity. •If your laptop has a network card or anything else protruding from its side, make a gap in your platform for it. • If you can stand changing sides once in a while, your body will probably thank you (although some bodies need to lie on a particular side). This will involve making two screen holders, and lifting a screen/laptop, wires, and keyboards and moving them. If this is too much hassle, you could try to fix it so you balance off all the one-sided lying at the computer with mostly sleeping on the other side, and taking breaks often-and if these involve lying then lie on the other side. • If your laptop or flat screen monitor has a wide side frame around the lighted screen, your platform will need to be that much lower to the ground so your lower eye sees only about ½ inch of frame below the lighted screen (anything lower will be obscured by the bedclothes). • Even though there are other ways, I decided that the strongest screen holder would need heavy construction methods when it came to fastening it to the bed, so I made liberal use of long ¼-inch bolts that go all the way from the outside of the plywood, through the offsets sideways, and through the bed frame. • If you'd rather fasten a monitor to the wall, see our material about back-lying computing using a VESA wall mount and a flat screen monitor. Or if you'd rather your screen was mounted on a table, cabinet, or even a wheel-around bedside tray, then use the parameters we've described above and remember that anything that can tip over eventually will, and laptops and flat screens are not cheap! • Some computer equipment rental companies may offer tools and accessories that make it easier to use a laptop from different angles. |
Building a Laptop or Flat Screen Monitor Holder |
