Simulated Wood bed

[RodC]

I have been thinkin about this for a while. The wood is about gone in my bed and the prev owner tack welded a sheet of metal over the whole thing. Yep all the wood and the metal strips are under there. (gets kinda noisy)

I was thinking about:
Removing every thing
Putting the metal down where the wood belongs
Paint the metal dark gray
Drill holes in the metal and put the wood retaining strips on top
Paint the strips blue

Has anyone done this? I don't haul much and I think the strips would only stick 1/4 of an inch.