Patrick's Bed

Late last week, after a wee bit of trial and tribulation, I finished and delivered my first bed, to my client, Patrick. Patrick's full/double bed is made of 3/4" birch veneered plywood with a dark walnut stain. It holds a standard size mattress, which is about 75" long x 54" wide. The design is decidedly different than most of what I've done in the past, since I don't tend to use plywood or stains much. However, it was an opportunity to try my hand at what seemed like some pretty intense - and at times challenging - series of mortise and tenon construction.

The headboard and footboard are individual solid pieces that serve as the basic structure of the piece, and are supported by posts fabricated using several layers of plywood. The side rails are long tenons that sleeve into double mortises cut front-to-back and side-to-side into each post. The posts also accommodate lateral tenons that mortises through the central length of support. The lateral supports that span the width of the bed sleeve onto the central and side rails. Several pins too keep everything in place round out the design. After finishing the basic structure, I found that there was still a little too much movement from front to back, so I attached some metal brackets to stabilize each post.

Now, it's back to business. My new projects include a new bent plywood and paper seat chair, a dining table or two, and a record/turntable cabinet that's supposed to be for my friend Jason, but that I might have to keep for myself. I'll also be posting photos of a couple side tables I put together in my spare time over the past couple of months. Those will be for sale, if you're interested. Stay tuned.