This is my first project working with a wood other than inexpensive pine from the big box stores. It was inspired by the many projects I have seen on here by my fellow LJ’s. It was modeled after a walnut nightstand on my wife’s side of the bed. It was constructed of 3/4” cherry with mortise and tenon, dowel, and biscuit joints. Without a tenon jig, a mortiser, a plane, or a drill press, this tested my patience and hand tool skills. What an amazing learning process. I learned a lot about the importance of tight fitting joints and how long it takes to pound out mortises by thumping a 1/4” chisel with the pad of my hand. My toddler’s rooms are above my garage and my wife put the smack-down on any hammering or power tools after bed time. It’s laughable, but forced me to take my time. I logged countless hours listening to late-night NPR on my shop radio while shaking the sting out of my digits.

The finish was 3 coats of Watco Danish oil (thanks poroskywood – LJ), sanding with 400 in between coats, 2 coats of rub-on poly (satin), sanded to 400 in between, a light misting of spray-on poly (semi-gloss), followed by a rubbing of paste wax on #0000 steel wool. The last step was rubbing the finish out with a terry towel. And I mean seriously rubbing. The result was a beautiful finish that brought the grain to life.

Notes for next project. Invest in a mortiser or drill press. Buy a dowel centering jig. Spend more time studying the grain patterns in mating pieces. Don’t be afraid to work with new woods.

And for those of you wondering why I didn’t add a drawer to this. Total truth… I was scared to bite off more than I could chew. I need to learn/practice dovetail joints and get my confidence up before I pile up expensive scrap wood.

I’m excited to start my next project. This site is packed to the pixel with inspirational projects from you all.

When asked what type of bookshelves my wife wanted for our daughter’s room, she pointed me to a dollhouse bookshelf from Pottery Barn Kids. Really fun concept of melding the playfulness of a doll house with the multi-tiered storage capability of a standard bookshelf. I took the overall dimensions from the catalog and used a scaled ruler to get the basic measurements from the photo and began cutting oak plywood (only because I had a sheet on hand). At first I was planning on staining it, so I edge-banded the raw front edges. As I began assembly, I decided I’m going to paint it white to match the bed I recently made her. Roof is a simple 30 degree angle. Door and windows are routed with 1/2 inch straight bit.

I’m excited to finish it and see how she utilizes it. I’m guessing the shelves will be cleared off daily to make room for dolls and I’ll be picking up books before bed. I’ll get some more pics up as I finish sanding and priming.

In retrospect, MDF would have been totally acceptable for materials, but at least it feels sturdy enough to withstand the abuse she’ll no doubt give it.

This is part 3 of a previous project

For those of you who wanted to follow this project to completion. Here it is. Two coats of primer and three coats of enamel. I ripped a piece of OSB to sit inside the base to support the mattress. My daughter loves her new bed and was super excited to sleep in it last night. Big success.

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This is part 2 of a previous post.

I took an inventory of remaining pine I had and went out and bought some pine bead-board (not really sure what it’s technically called) and started on the headboard and side rails. I had to take a few notes into consideration: The first, and most important, is that the bed has to be safe and not allow my child to fall out in the middle of the night, and the second is that it has to be sturdy enough to handle very rambunctious kids. Function won over form.

I created the headboard using 3/4 oak ply and wrapped both vertical edges with 3/4 pine strips. I routed some more cove molding. Then I ripped a strip of pine that would allow for some overlap for the top piece. I cut the bead-board strips to fit into the opening (on top of oak ply) and glued/clamped them down. I figured brads would be overkill. Then I went to work on cutting smaller strips of bead-board to cover the recesses on all four sides of the bed frame. Makes for a nice match to the headboard. Then I cut the two long side rails and mitered them off at the ends at 30 degrees. I used a roll of duct tape to trace the rounded arc and sanded until smooth.

Here’s where my typical over anxious ‘cut THEN measure’ actions got me into a bit of trouble. I drilled my peg holes on the headboard (to joint the side rails) in the wrong location, as you can see from the headboard photo. Doh! Well, I was able to drive small wood screws into the botched holes and cap them with a bit of wood putty. Total rookie mistake.

I wasn’t feeling confidant enough in my engineering ability (plus my wife cut off the budget) to build a removable headboard so I went with doweling them into place. I glued the side boards to the headboard first creating a “U” shaped unit. Then after that set up, I dropped the entire piece onto the bed frame and glued/clamped. I checked the joints 12 hours later and they are pretty rock solid. Next steps are to sand, sand, sand and then paint.

Can anyone out there give me some advice? I’ve heard a lot of great things about Milk Paint. Read about it on Rockler as well. This bed is made of pine and I have some left-over Kilz from a ceiling disaster last year. Would you recommend that I coat the bed in Kilz before painting with Milk paint? Is pine super-absorbent? My ideal for this job is to have a semi-gloss white covering that resists as much as my kids can throw at it. I don’t have a sprayer so will most likely have to roll/brush these coats on. Thanks in advance for the reply.

Project Update »

This is a work in progress, as I need some suggestions on a headboard and side rails. I created a box frame using 3/4” oak ply with 2×4 supports. I used twin 2×4s as the legs and wrapped them in 3/4” pine. I routed some 1.5” pine with a cove bit for trim. I originally intended to stain the bed when complete, but now after reading so many iffy posts on staining pine, I think I’ll paint it instead.

Where I need the most help is figuring out a headboard and side rails, so that my 2 year old daughter doesn’t flop out in the wee hours of the night. Should I build an independent headboard and secure it with vertical supports “behind” the bed? Should I build a headboard that incorporates the side rails in the shape of a “U” and secure them from the inside with steel supports? Using 2×4s is most likely an overkill, but I’m a bit new to furniture building. I have seen some really nice examples on LJ of using tenons, but I’ll need some practice before feeling comfortable enough with tenon work.

Any and all suggestions appreciated. This has been a ton of fun and I’m excited to learn from the pros out there. My daughter came out into the garage this past Saturday and said, “Daddy, my bed looks beautiful. You did a good job.” So now I feel even more motivated to make sure I get this darn thing right.

Progress Update

I purchased a 10” Craftsman Table Saw back in 2004 and quickly realized the frustrations of not having a zero-clearance insert (throat plate). The saw came with 2 inserts: a dado plate and a standard plate that had at least a 3/4” opening. This proved to be problematic when fine-tuning boards as they would fall into the throat, causing the board to get hung up. Watched a few nice pieces of wood get burned. I looked all around the Web for replacement inserts to no avail. As you can see from the photos, Craftsman decided to create a very unique and non-standard shape (3 rounded corners…HUH???). I was very tempted to sell the entire saw and start over with a hybrid of better quality, until I decided to give one last-ditch effort to create my own.

I took the existing metal insert and laid it on top of some 1/4” MDF and traced it. I wanted it to fit snug, so I anticipated my final cut being a bit proud. After all, I could always sand it to get the perfect fit. Because I couldn’t use the actual table saw to cut my MDF, I used a very non-conventional method of a metal ruler and a razor blade. I scored it about a hundred times before I was able to cut through. I rounded 3 of the corners with sand paper and finally got it to fit.

What I discovered was that 1/4” was too deep, because of a metal support bar running the length of the throat (also pictured). So, back to the drawing board. I needed to recess a narrow channel down the length of the insert so that the top of the plate sat flush with my table. I measured the support bar location and made some pencil marks and got out the old rotary tool with a drum sanding head and went to work digging a narrow trench. After laying the trench, I’d check the fit and hit it with the rotary tool again until it was the perfect fit.

After all of that, it turned out that the blade wasn’t able to recess down low enough to allow the 1/4” MDF to sit flush. So, a new challenge presented itself.

What I ended up doing was taking a few more measurements to figure out exactly where the blade was hitting the insert and scoring some lines along the bottom and switching the rotary tool head to a 1/8” plunge router bit. I ran the bit down my “blade line” until I was sure it was deep enough to allow the blade to fit into it. Last step was to fine tune the insert so that it was flush with the table top. I used a few pieces of cardboard, glued to the bottom and then added some thick cardstock until it was perfectly level.

This is my first project posted in LJ, and I’m sure most of you are thinking that I should have just bought a new saw. However, I wish someone would have shown me that a zero-clearance insert was possible for this saw years ago. Would have saved me a ton of fear and wood.