Designed and built Rosalia her own “big girl” twin-size bed. The headboard, footboard, bed rails and guard rails are all made from solid birch. The mattress frame is made from select pine. The footboard and headboard are glued so they’re permanent pieces. The bed rails attach using fancy hidden hardware that saved me the time from pounding out mortises. The guard rails are fastened using screws, so they can be removed with age.
The bed is a solid as a tank, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. Rosalia loves her big girl bed.
Here’s the build:
Bed design in Sketchup.
Lumber options at the shop (KM Hardwoods)
Lumber on the way home
Lumber stacked in the garage. Should use stickers but didn’t bother.
Lots of birch, ready for machining.
Pine 1×4 frame, fastened with black screws and pocket hole screws. Used mineral spirits to clean off some of the tags.
Birch 5/4 stock laid out after planing down from 5/4 to 1″
Ripping the 1″ stock to width onto the new workbench. It’s amazing.
Testing the design from the resawn/planed slats, made from scrap 5/4 birch.
Headboard concept looks great, quite pleased.
Laid out the 4/4 stock for selection, throwing out the Sketchup layout for something that looks really neat.
Resawing the 4/4 purpleheart stock for laminating in the bed posts.
Resawn purpleheart, looking glorious as can be.
Laminating birch with purple heart, using as many clamps as I have. Can never have enough clamps.
Bed post lamination.
Rosalia approves of the “sandwich”.
Ripped the bed post stock closer to 2″ actual width.
Cut posts to length.
Dry fit of the footboard to see how it’ll look.
Dry fit test to see how it’ll look. Very pleased.
Cut biscuit slots in the slats.
Cut biscuit slots in the slats and frame pieces.
All biscuits cut.
Routed all the slats and frame pieces. 1/8″ round on all the frame pieces, 1/4″ round on the slats to make it 180º. Rails got a 1/4″ round on the outer side, 1/8″ round on the rest.
Footboard glue up.
Rosalia approves of the footboard.
Headboard glue up.
Rosalia helping with mounting the bed rail hardware.
Affixed the bed rail hardware. Fits like a glove. Solid as a tank.
Mounted the mattress frame. Fits perfectly given the 1/8″ margin I left in the sizing.
Load testing, amirite?
Close up shot of the rail hardware.
Functionally complete, but needs guard rails and finishing.
Guard rails glue up.
Female rail hardware.
Test fit of the guard rails.
Fixing a stubborn biscuit joint while finishing the other guard rail.
Finished guard rail.
Two coats of wipe-on polyurethane applied. 1000-grit sanding in-between leaves a glass-smooth finish.
Transferred upstairs for the princess. She loves it.
