Wall-to-Wall Wall Bed

This was my first major project, and was actually a big part of why I have gotten in to woodworking as deeply as I have.

My wife wanted to use one of our spare bedrooms for her oil painting, but we also wanted to be able to use it as a guest bedroom, so this was the solution.

This was built in three main sections. The left part we call the “Armoire”, the middle is the bed of course, and the right side is the nightstand & bookcase section. The bed came with its own plans from Create-A-Bed, the other two sections I designed in Sketchup. That was a big help.

Construction is oak and oak plywood, with some pine for secondary woods. Mostly mortise and tenon or half lap joints for the face frames. The crown molding was made on the router table, a basic bead and cove that was glued up in two pieces. Finish is Amber Shellac and wax, my first use of this. The Armoire had it brushed on, but this didn’t work too well, so I bought a sprayer to do the other parts. The sprayer was a BIG help.

This only takes up about 13 square feet of floor space when folded up, but provides a full size bed, drawer space equal to a regular sized chest of drawers, 16 feet of concealed storage space behind the doors, 18 feet of bookshelf space, and about 11 running feet of display space. Everything I build has to have display space, since my wife loves to decorate.

There is a pull out shelf on the nightstand that provides a place for eyeglasses or books while in bed. There is a false back behind the shelves in the bottom of the nightstand, and at the back of the nightstand top there is a framed slot that drops into the concealed space, where there are electrical outlights for a lamp, clock radio, telephone or whatever else one might keep on their nightstand.

The shelves in the Armoire are fixed, but three of the bookshelf sections shelves are adjustable, as are the two shelves inside the nightstand.

Funtionally, this has worked out great, and is a great space saver. My wife had picked out the new colors for the room a long time ago, and thinks that the color of the shellac is a great match to the room.

Another great thing has been the cost savings. If I had bought all of this, it would have cost more than what all the materials plus the cost of my table saw, router, router table and all my other recent tool purchases put together have cost. So, I can actually justify the cost of my workshop! (Not that I have to, but it is nice to be able to say)