Tink Tot bed for the little girl

Happy holidays all!

I know I haven’t posted anything in awhile, but I have been busy working my but off to take advantage of the short summer I had. I have a few projects I have completed that I will be posting over the next few days.

This is what I consider to be my best work of the summer. My daugher, Alexandria, is a very big girl for four months shy of 3 years old. (41”, 39 lbs.) She loves to jump, jump, jump. Needless to say her 3 in 1 crib was turned into firewood quick. Knowing you can’t always stop them, I decided to build a better mouse trap. Well, in this case, more robust.

I don’t have a lot of the fancy tools, or a big shop(until last month), or much cash. I decided I would build it out of poplar and birch ply from the big box store and use all hand tools to do it. This solved a few problems: 1) If I screwed up, I could go right back and buy more wood because it is so close. 2) I could learn how to properly use a chisel (with Mr. Spagnolos help).

For the posts I face joined 2 2×6x5’ boards, ripped them in half and milled the 2 posts down to 3×3. Cut them to length and got to pounding… Lesson 1) no matter how much time you think a given task will take, multiply it by atleast 2. This is also when I realized, I enjoyed chiseling but I need a jointers mallet.

The box is actually a 1/2”x6 box joined in the corners with rabbets inside a 1/2”x2” box as an outter strap joined with miters in each corner. This was to tuck inside the posts and hopefully provided it enough strength to put up with my 2 monkeys. I used 7/16” birch for the box bottom that rests in a 1/4 deep dado.

I mortised and tennoned the 3 rails in the head board and foot board. I also placed a shallow dado all the way around the head board for the head board inset. I was also able to score some left over Tinker Bell wall boarder from a daycare that happened to be just the right size for the headboard.

I finished it with some Tinker Bell color paint and clear coated it for protection.

I am really pleased with how this turned out being new to this hobby. I learned a great deal about planning, execution, and gave me the motivation to build a bigger shop. And I will never forget the look on her face and what she did when she saw it…(the last pic)

I LOVE BEING A DAD!

I finally got Alex’s room done…( http://homerefurbers.com/projects/338 )

-- Semper Fi, Randy Sr.