Floating Bed

 This project was completed about a year ago.

The requirement was to produce a bed that appeared to be floating in space.

Also it had to be a bit “edgy”.

The result is this California King made of African Mahogany and Maple. The African Mahogany is dyed and stained to a deep chocolate or espresso color, and the Maple is left natural. Final finish is Polyurethane.

The headboard is a glue-up of 1/4” veneer “fans”. The fans are individually glued to a backer of 1/2” Baltic Birch plywood. It was a challenge clamping each fan to the backer since each fan was a different length and the clamps had to be re-positioned as required to span each fan as it was glued. Imagine an adjustable veneer press used to press the each fan into the backer while the glue dries. This process took a long time allowing time for each fan to set-up before moving on the next.

To make the fans, I taper-cut 3/4” wood at 2” on one end and 4” at the 5 foot mark. Then the tapered boards were re-sawn, opened book mark style, glued together, and then run through the drum sander to get uniform thickness. All fans are chamfered on the edges to provide a more distinct pattern.

Surrounding the headboard is trim made of 1 1/2 thick African mahogany with a channel cut to fit over the exposed edges. All angles had to be fitted. Notice the dip in the middle and the angle at the top corner is not a 90 degree angle.

The bedbox is made of maple with a full 3/4” mahogany glue-up around the edge. There are buttresses supporting the mahogany shelf around the bed. After assembly I stood on the shelf to assure that it is strong enough. The box is held together with bed bolts on each corner.

The slats to support the mattress/box springs are 2 removable ladders of maple. Unfortunatey, some of the best figured maple is buried under the mattress.

The 2 corners at the foot of the bed are removable and are put in place after the bed box corners are securely bolted.

To achieve the “floating” look, the feet are mounted about 12” in from any edge.

In one of the pictures, the bed is in “cloaked” mode and there are no visible legs holding it off the floor. The photo is not doctored except for cropping to get a closer look. Sorry it is a little fuzzy.

-- joejt