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We had a small bedroom to fill and started looking for what was called a storage bed or farm bed taking advantage of the space under the mattress for storage. After looking at bedroom sets and being disappointed in the use of woods, stains, and construction I decided to build my own.
The ones I saw used three drawers on each side but I decided to put two on the side and two at the foot of the bed. I made them for maximum depth which turned out to be 28 inches. Using full extension hardware meant we would have full access to the drawers.
Fortunately, I had a lot of cherry 1/2" x 6" baseboard that was left over from building my house. It had been around for years and I knew that most likely it would never get used. So, set out to make a bed.
I hadn't done furniture making in years. Most of my projects were either in construction where tolerances were not as important so my first task was to tune up all my tools including the Delta Unisaw, Makita planer jointer, chop saw and sanders. I had the planer and jointer blades sharpened and pulled out my special reserve rip and crosscut blades.
Then I set out to build the bed and two end tables. I first rough sketched out my plans. The first was a headboard which involved purchasing some 3x3 cherry (ouch) for the posts. The panels I laminated and glued up from the baseboard. The pictures below show the main construction including assembly of the headboard, assembly of the basic outer frame, assembly of the inner drawer and bed supporting framewood and then the assembly of the two end tables.
When finished I completely dissassembled it and spray painted the components and drawers with flat finish polyurethane enamel. Finally, I moved it to reassemble it, tuning the door fronts and drawers. The drawers have self-closing full extension hardware.
I built a similar footboard and moved on to make the sides and assemble it into a frame.
The ones I saw used three drawers on each side but I decided to put two on the side and two at the foot of the bed. I made them for maximum depth which turned out to be 28 inches. Using full extension hardware meant we would have full access to the drawers.
Fortunately, I had a lot of cherry 1/2" x 6" baseboard that was left over from building my house. It had been around for years and I knew that most likely it would never get used. So, set out to make a bed.
I hadn't done furniture making in years. Most of my projects were either in construction where tolerances were not as important so my first task was to tune up all my tools including the Delta Unisaw, Makita planer jointer, chop saw and sanders. I had the planer and jointer blades sharpened and pulled out my special reserve rip and crosscut blades.
Then I set out to build the bed and two end tables. I first rough sketched out my plans. The first was a headboard which involved purchasing some 3x3 cherry (ouch) for the posts. The panels I laminated and glued up from the baseboard. The pictures below show the main construction including assembly of the headboard, assembly of the basic outer frame, assembly of the inner drawer and bed supporting framewood and then the assembly of the two end tables.
When finished I completely dissassembled it and spray painted the components and drawers with flat finish polyurethane enamel. Finally, I moved it to reassemble it, tuning the door fronts and drawers. The drawers have self-closing full extension hardware.
I built a similar footboard and moved on to make the sides and assemble it into a frame.