#that bed did hold my 330 and my kid's 50 pretty easily

[beezelbubbles]

Okay so. A very large part of my husband's job is building platforms meant to support the weight of multiple actors at a time, sometimes while dancing and jumping around. So he built this bed https://www.ana-white.com/woodworking-projects/camp-loft-bed-stair-junior-height for our kiddo. So we're already ahead in that husband has all the skills needed. But this isn't like *the* most complex, it's just there are little things that make it easier going. I filled a shopping cart from Home Depot with this supplies list, plus the stuff they assume you've got like wood filler, tools, slats for the mattress to rest on, level, carpenter's square, etc. I went Ryobi for the circular saw and drill/driver. This kind of job is incredibly frustrating if your power tools don't have some power to them. One thing I didn't put in was saw horses for the saw. So that adds a bit, or you can get a small table saw, which also adds a bit. I added a little power sander because you do not want to be hand sanding all of this, but also if you don't sand it, you get splinters. All told it was 315 pre-taxes. This also assumes you have a way to get the wood where you want it. And have space to do all the construction. It was about a day's work to build, and then paint took a while to dry. Husband's only assistant was the 8 year-old, but he builds whole theatre sets on his own, so I recommend someone a little more experienced for an assistant. (Also kiddo has been learning power tools and theatre bits since they were about 5.) All of that and it was still pretty basic. And only a twin sized bed. Bigger will be more expensive and a bigger pain the ass to build.

But the real kicker is that in the end you only have a bed frame. I have to find a mattress that can accommodate my weight. And since I can't live my life in bed, I need to build my dining chairs. I need to figure out a couch. (I helped build one in jr high, but that was ages ago.) Most office chairs have an upper rating of 150. Higher than that and they start getting real pricey real fast. I do not even begin to know how to build an office chair. I should not need to become an artisanal furniture maker just so I can exist. (Or you know, marry a furniture maker.)

And I know we've been talking about homes here, but fat people do go out in public. Chairs with arms? Even if it can hold my weight, it doesn't matter if the arms aren't wide enough for my hips. There is some kind of irony that as the fat population grow the world seems to be increasingly hostile to us.

Here's something that a lot of thin people don't know about being fat: you have to be very careful, these days, what the weight limit on your furniture is. So much is made of particleboard or even cardboard or flimsy plastic, and it may be great for the environment for things to be made of recycled materials, but it can easily leave fat people in the incredibly humiliating situation of breaking a chair by sitting on it, or a table by leaning on it. It also creates an effective "fat tax" on furniture, since the more solid materials tend to cost more.

When I was looking for loft beds to make my apartment effectively larger, the majority of them had a weight limit of 200 pounds, including the weight of the mattress. That puts a weight limit on the person of roughly 150 pounds, and that presumes a light mattress. That's not taking into account blankets, pillows, and stuffies, which can easily rack up a weight of around ten to twenty pounds without much trouble, bringing the safe weight for a person down to roughly 140 to 130 pounds. The ones that held more than that had a steep increase in price, with ones that held 300 pounds costing roughly 600$ more than the 200 pound ones, and the 400 pound ones, which I wanted for tolerances, ran a good 800$ more on average than the ones for 200 pounds.

More generally, solid wood, metal, tempered glass, and thick, durable plastic cost more than particleboard, cardboard, and flimsy plastic. They are also far more likely to be safe for fat people to use.

If you are a thin person and want fat people to be comfortable when visiting you, invest in furniture that is clearly made with sturdy materials. Having to brush off standing the whole visit is embarrassing both for us and, if you are a host who cares about the comfort of guests, for you.