# Twin-Sized Bed With Pull-Out Desk, Closet, and Dresser



## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*What went on before...*

My family is just too big…

Either that or my house is too small.

We have four children at home. Two are college age, and two are in their early teens. Thye two youngest ones share a bedroom…nothing uncommon about that. However, they definitely do not want to use bunk beds. As you might imagine, this can lead to floor space issues. This is especially true when you consider that they really can't share a single dresser, and they both have school work that needs doing-at the same time of course.

The Love Of My Life and I found the perfect furniture solution in a catalog. Essentially it is a captain's bed, but there's more to it than that. It has an honest-to-goodness pull-out desk, a dresser, and more built-in. A pair of those packs a lot of function into no more floor space than the bed alone!

Here is a picture of a bed found in a catalog:



Unfortunately for my budget, the price tag was too high for the particular style we wanted ($2000) and we needed two of them!

Fortunately, I (think I) have just enough wherewithal to tackle the job of building my own. In additional benefit, of course, is that I can build something tailored to my kids' liking.

One of these bed systems has already been built-complete with several lessons learned in the process. This was done before I joined LumberJocks. I'll post some pictures of it in the next post.

My design differs from teh above picture. At the foot end of the bed, I'm using the space for a mini-closet. It has enough space inside to hang quite a few clothes. This is something I wanted to include so that they each can have their own special place for hangables. The closet section also has a couple of shelves for shoes and the like.

So much for history. Next time… more about the previously built bed, lessons learned, and changes that go into the second version!


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## DerekL (Aug 18, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


Looking forward to part 2!


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


keep it coming


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## UncleHank (Jan 13, 2010)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


I can't wait to see the pictures of the finished product. I've always been interested in multi-function furniture. I can see building one or more of these as my family grows.

Only concern I have is their ease of access to the bed. It looks to be several feet tall to accommodate the desk, and I don't see any ladder-type structure to scale. Is that addressed somewhere out of sight, or have you included a solution for that?

Looking forward to more!


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## sbryan55 (Dec 8, 2007)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


This looks like an interesting piece of furniture. I will be looking forward to the next installment.


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


@UncleHank:

Yeah, this picture was a bad one to choose in that regard. The pictured bed actually has a separate "stair unit" that isn't shown, but it sits at the foot end of the bed (and takes up a lot of floor space). I suppose it's easier to climb than a ladder, but I don't have the floor space for it.

You'll in in the next post what I did about that. basically, the ladder is attached to the side of the "closet unit" at the foot end of the bed.


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## Eagle1 (Jan 4, 2010)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


Great work can't wait to see part 2..


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## SPalm (Oct 9, 2007)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


This will be fun to watch.

Welcome to LJs,
Steve


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

gbarteck said:


> *What went on before...*
> 
> My family is just too big…
> 
> ...


I love these serial blogs. Can't wait to see your version!


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*The First Time: Lessons Learned*

In our last episode…you heard about the *why* of building a pair of captain's beds. Now we get into the *how* of building them…

Okay so I need to build a pair of captains beds for my youngest two boys. After seeing what was available inthe furniture stores, we pretty much knew what we wanted in the beds, as far as features are concerned:


A dresser with three large drawers
A reasonable size student desk that can put put away when not in use
A closet capable of hanging clothes and storing shoes and the like.
A ladder for access to the bed

Confident in the functional aspects of the project, I went to consult with my then-11-year-old son about style issues"

"Hey William, what would you like your bed to look like?"

"I don't know."

"Well, would you like to be be 'wood colored' (stained finish) or painted?"

"Painted, I guess."

"What color?"

"Black. And red…But mostly black."

Oh… did I say he loves black? And red? Well… he's the one who'll be using it every day, so "the customer is always right."

This was almost a year when I started building the first bed. A few months passed on the calendar, and it was almost summer by the time I finished it. The going was slow mostly due to lack of time to work on it.

I must admit that I didn't do a whole lot of planning for that firt build, other than figuring out the basic dimensions. In a way, I was relieved that my son wanted his bed painted. I figured that would allow a greater margin of error in handling the lumber. After all, you can hide a lot of mistakes under paint 

I envisioned the construction to be done as four separate sub-units:


The dresser
The desk
The closet
The bed box
A "space filler" box that would reside behind the dresser unit support the bed box in that area.

And then assemble all of the pieces together at the end.

Were mistakes made along the way? You bet. Mostly careless handling of the lumber whie in the presence of power tools. What happened? Nothing grotesque…nothing bizzare…nothing that a little wood filler couldn't fix. Like I said, you can hide alot of mistakes under paint.

When the time came to paint each sub-assembly I chose to put on a latex paint over primer. All in all, it worked out ok, but the resulting finish was not as nice as other painted furniture I've seen. I figure it was due to the choice of latex over oil-based paint. I keep telling myself to do some experimenting in that regard.

Looking at all of the sub-assemblies after they were completed, I must say that I was happy with the way it all looked. There in my workshop (read "garage"), I put all of pieces together for the first time…or tried to. Let me just say that it's always a good thing to plan ahead as much as practical for a project like this.

I ended up with a few design flaws. Some appeared at assembly time. Others didn't rear their ugly heads until a few days after installation.

The first couple of flaws were related to the pull-out desk mechanism. The idea was to mount a pair of fixed casters to the "underdesk", and mount a "guide rail" within the tunnel that the desk slid into. This guide rail would support the desktop, and keep things aligned so all would go smoothly.

*Flaw #1: Failure to provide clearance forthe guide rail to fit between the udnerdesk and the tunner wall.* This forced me to change my method for supporting the desktop and guiding it into the tunnel. However, it didn't take too much time, and after an hour or so The desk was sliding smoothly into place.

*Flaw #2 & #3: Failure to account for how the different sub-assemblies would settle into a carpeted floor.* After being satisfied with how the assemblies went together, I took it all upstairs to install it in the bedroom. Suddenly there were two problems:


The casters on the desk unit sunk into the carpeting more than the other assemblies did. Thus the desktop no longer fit into it's guide mechanism anymore. Fortunately this was fixable without any major modifications, but I was peeved that I didn't think to make this part more easily adjustable.
The bottom drawer of the dresser unit was located to close to the floor so that after an hour or so, the carpet interfered with the drawer making it unopenable. This made it necessary to put the entire bed system "up on blocks" to get clearance for the drawer to open.

*Flaw #4: Ladder interferes a little with use of the desk.* While the desk is usable, have the chair position on the same area as the ladder makes things awkward.

Here are a couple of pictures of the first bed completed and installed:





But some good lessons were learned, and before starting the second bed, I made a scale model using Google Sketchup. This is a wonderful program that would reccommend to all.





This model incorporates changes resulting the lessons learned with the previous build. It doesn't include the ladder, or the cut-out in the side of the bed box (to make it easier to climb into the bed.)

My second-youngest son says that we wants his bed stained…now I have to be more careful handling my lumber.

*Tune in next time for the next exciting chapter in the adventures of Captain(s) Bed in the Land of Recycled Lumber*

(Yes there is even some recycled lumber that got used in this project. More on that next time!)

-Greg


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

gbarteck said:


> *The First Time: Lessons Learned*
> 
> In our last episode…you heard about the *why* of building a pair of captain's beds. Now we get into the *how* of building them…
> 
> ...


Very nice design and the black paint looks great too. Unless you are making these things every day you are bound to run into some unexpected problems, but it sounded like you didn't have any problems coping with them. All in all a very well done and attractive result.


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## UncleHank (Jan 13, 2010)

gbarteck said:


> *The First Time: Lessons Learned*
> 
> In our last episode…you heard about the *why* of building a pair of captain's beds. Now we get into the *how* of building them…
> 
> ...


Looks awesome Greg! Can't wait to see what you did with the second one.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *The First Time: Lessons Learned*
> 
> In our last episode…you heard about the *why* of building a pair of captain's beds. Now we get into the *how* of building them…
> 
> ...


cool beds


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*Drawers and Drawer Fronts from Reclaimed Wood.*

One thing I like the idea of is using reclaimed wood, if possible. I like the idea of reycling in almost any context, and to some small extent in can help reduce the amount of trees that have to be harvested for lumber.

I have a friend that I met via the Band Booster group at my son's high school. He is one of the nicest, most generous people I have known. I happens that over time Don was able to salvage various amounts of lumber from his workplace. It seems that the company every now and then builds temporary structures and when the structures are no longer needed, these structures are taken down. In the meantime, the boards used, usually 8/4 X 6 X (various lengths) get pretty weathered, so the company would normally discard them. At one point my friend had a sizeable woodpile on his property.

One day, a wind storm had snapped a rather large Bradford Pear tree on his property, and he had called me to see if I could help with the removal of the tree. So I went over to help out. In the process he allowed me to keep several sections of trunk, branches, and the like, with the idea that at some point I would put them on my lathe and make something out of them. I haven't gotten around to doing t hat yet-too many other irons on the fire.

After we were done, my friend tells me that he wanted to rid himself of much of the boards that he had salvaged and asked if I wanted any of them. He came to the realization that he was not going to be able to put them to use himself like he wanted to. There were Oak and Poplar boards-mostly Poplar-and I thought that they would make fine wood for the drawer boxes on my captain's bed project. I wiped the drool from my mouth and said "sure thing". I got several of the poplar boards and a few oak boards as well. As you can see below, everything was pretty weathered when I got it.



However, after running it through the jointer, I could see that it would suit my purposes well. I was also able to build some drawer fronts using the oak boards (This second captains bed is made from oak plywood and oak boards.)



After resawing the boards and edge joining, I was able to make the sides for the drawer boxes-7 inches deep for the dresser draws and 3 1/2 inches deep for the desk drawers. Oak drawer fronts are 30×8 5/8 for the dresser drawer fronts. For the top desk drawer the drawer front is 12×4 1/2, and the bottom drawer front is 12×5 1/2.


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

gbarteck said:


> *Drawers and Drawer Fronts from Reclaimed Wood.*
> 
> One thing I like the idea of is using reclaimed wood, if possible. I like the idea of reycling in almost any context, and to some small extent in can help reduce the amount of trees that have to be harvested for lumber.
> 
> ...


I like what you are doing there and I'm looking forward to seeing the other bed set. That wood was quite a find and I'm pretty sure you will do justice to it. Nice work on the drawers and the oak drawer fronts.


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*The desk unit*

While all of the subassemblies of the second bed are the same as the first, I needed to build the desk unit and dresser units as "mirror images" of how they were built on the first bed, due to how the bed would be situated in the bedroom.

Since the dresser unit is at the "head" end of the bed, and the desk must be oriented so that the chair goes on the same side of the desktop as the dresser (a change from the first bed design… see entry #2 in this series), the actual build of the second bed's desk unit iactually works out to be the same as on the first bed, because the "opposite-handed" orientation of the bed and the changed orientation of where the chair goes cancel each other out, as it were. (The skektchup model in entry #2 of this series is designed for the location of the first bed, not the second.)

Since this project is being stained rather than painted, I wanted to do construct the desktop with oak ply with a solid oak edge band (1 inch wide) around the perimeter of the desktop. The edge band is mitered at the corners (I didn't take any pictures of that process… apologies. The pieces of the underdesk are also oak ply with solid oak edge band on the "front edge". All of the edge banding was biscuit-joined to the ply.

Dividing members were mated to the sides of the underdesk with a dado.

Here are all of the pieces cut and ready for assembly:



And here is a view of the underdesk assembled, but not mated to the desktop:



One feature that I included on this desk unit that is new is that the lowermost opening in the underdesk is fitted with dividers that can be used for sorting school papers, etc. Setting my dado to 1/4", cuts were made in the bottom piece of ply, and the one above it:



For the dividers themselves, I used a sander to round the leading corners to (about) the same profile at the and of the kerf cut.

The underdesk is fastened to the desktop with table fasteners:



After staining (minwax oil stain-red mahogany) and a coat or two of satin poly, there is the finished assembly:



The casters and drawer hardware will be attached to the underdesk later.

Tune in for the next installment: The Dresser Unit


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## Beginningwoodworker (May 5, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *The desk unit*
> 
> While all of the subassemblies of the second bed are the same as the first, I needed to build the desk unit and dresser units as "mirror images" of how they were built on the first bed, due to how the bed would be situated in the bedroom.
> 
> ...


Nice work!


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *The desk unit*
> 
> While all of the subassemblies of the second bed are the same as the first, I needed to build the desk unit and dresser units as "mirror images" of how they were built on the first bed, due to how the bed would be situated in the bedroom.
> 
> ...


That will doer good desk


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

gbarteck said:


> *The desk unit*
> 
> While all of the subassemblies of the second bed are the same as the first, I needed to build the desk unit and dresser units as "mirror images" of how they were built on the first bed, due to how the bed would be situated in the bedroom.
> 
> ...


Nice blog and good result on the desk. I especially liked that you let your kids pick out what they wanted instead of forcing something on them. As kids most of us didn't get to make many choices and I'm sure they will appreciate this now and later on as adults. It's all about mutual respect and relationship building. But then, you know that.


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*The Dresser Unit*

In our last episode…the desk unit came together nicely. Now for the dresser unit…

The dresser unit, like the desk unit has to be built in "mirror image" from it's design from the first bed. The dresser features three drawers that are 28"Wx7"Hx22"D. I'm putting full-extension drawer slides on the drawers, to give easy access all the way to the back of the drawers.



A feature of the dresser that I really like in this design is that there is a pair of storage areas at the end of the dresser, situated so that its in easy reach when working at the desk. Sure, there's storage in the underdesk part of the desk unit, but this storage space is good for larger items.

The construction of the dresser is pretty straightforward; There are three vertical panels (the left and right "skins" and the panel that separates the drawer area from the storage area.) These are 3/4" oak ply. 1×3 solid oak hold the panels in alignment along the bottom in front and in back. A cutout was made in the panels to accomodate this piece. Another piece of oak ply is at the top, attached to the side panels. The picture below shows this framework (upside down at the time.)



1/4" oak ply covers the back. This is covered by the drawers most of the time.

The drawer sliders I'm using require the opening for the drawer be exactly 1 inch wider then the drawer box, so the inside of the drawer area is 30" wide.

Overall, the dimensions of the dresser are 36"W x 24"D x 29.5"H





Because the bed is hoing to cover the top of the dresser, I didn't worry about making the top of the dresser pretty.

I can see the light at the end of the project! Only two more major pieces to go.

Next time…the closet unit!


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *The Dresser Unit*
> 
> In our last episode…the desk unit came together nicely. Now for the dresser unit…
> 
> ...


Great progress


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## SPalm (Oct 9, 2007)

gbarteck said:


> *The Dresser Unit*
> 
> In our last episode…the desk unit came together nicely. Now for the dresser unit…
> 
> ...


Wow, that's a lot of work.

Looking good,
Steve


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

gbarteck said:


> *The Dresser Unit*
> 
> In our last episode…the desk unit came together nicely. Now for the dresser unit…
> 
> ...


Getting there and looking good.


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*The closet unit, part one*

In our last episode…The dresser was completed (except for installing the hardware). Now the first of two installments on the mini-closet.

When I started the mini-closet for this build I didn't think it would take very long at all. But this portion of the project turned out to the most interesting part of the project so far.

I started out thinking that the closet should be the simplest thing; a simple box with two doors on the front. When I wrote down all of the parts of the closet, I did a double-take:


The closet box itself
face frame for closet front
closet hanger rod
Two storage shelves
rail-and-style doors
Access Ladder to climb into bed

Everything by itself sounds simple, I guess, but my first reaction was that this part of the project was full of little sub-projects. I said to myself, "gotta take it piece by piece."

First was the box. Simple enough. four panels for the floor, top,and sides (with some 1/4" ply to cover the back. Because the bed box ultimately covers the top of everything but the desk, I used cheap plywood for the top panels of the dresser and closet. After cutting to Oak ply panels for the two sides of the closet, I didn't have any enough oak ply for the bottom, so I used some birch-I didn't have to buy it, and it is hidden behind doors for the most part. I stained and put the satin poly on the panels before assembling them:





After pyutting ther 1/4 ply on the back. It was time to make the face frame. My initial thought was to cut the frame pieces to size, cut some slots for some #0 biscuits and biscuit it all together. Got as far as cutting the pieces and them came to realize (by holding a biscuit up to a cut board) that biscuits are too big for this particular application.

"Didn't you learn *anything* from the previous build?" I said to myself. My reason for wanting to use biscuits was basically that I didn't want to bother with mortise and tenons, and I don't own a pocket screw jig. As I sat there pondering what to do, I could tell that something was gnawing at my brain. Like Jason Bourne trying to remember who he was in his former life, what I hoped would be a solution flutter at the edge of my conciousness.

Then I remembered about floating tenons (I think that's the right name.) Basically the best of both worlds-a cross between a mortise and tenon and a biscuited joint.

I figured that if I cut down some 1/4" plywood wafers





and route out 1/4" grooves on my boards, I could jopin everything that way.







So that's what I did. It was actually very easy, and I ended up with a fine face frame for my mini-closet.



Then I installed some boards vertically to accept the bracket for the closet hanger rod on one side and the supports for the storage shelves on the other.



All that's left top do is put in the shelvesd, build the doors and the access ladder. I don't want to make this entry too long, so I'll call it a night for now.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *The closet unit, part one*
> 
> In our last episode…The dresser was completed (except for installing the hardware). Now the first of two installments on the mini-closet.
> 
> ...


Keep up the good work


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## Skylark53 (Jan 8, 2010)

gbarteck said:


> *The closet unit, part one*
> 
> In our last episode…The dresser was completed (except for installing the hardware). Now the first of two installments on the mini-closet.
> 
> ...


Looks great. Very useable and well built.


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

gbarteck said:


> *The closet unit, part one*
> 
> In our last episode…The dresser was completed (except for installing the hardware). Now the first of two installments on the mini-closet.
> 
> ...


Good progress and good save with the floating tenons. Just for fun I made a plywood biscuit which I glued up in a joint and did the same with a regular biscuit just to see which joint was stronger. The plywood biscuit won!


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## SPalm (Oct 9, 2007)

gbarteck said:


> *The closet unit, part one*
> 
> In our last episode…The dresser was completed (except for installing the hardware). Now the first of two installments on the mini-closet.
> 
> ...


Looking real good Greg.

This is a big project. I bet the kids love 'em.

Steve


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*Mini-Closet Part 2: shelves, doors, access ladder*

Before making the doors, I bought a rail-and-stile router bit set. I didn't it when I build the first bed unit because the doors for that first project were simple painted panels. After cutting a some test pieces to get a handle on how to adjust the router, cutting out the pieces for the doors was a piece of cake. However, let me say that these are the scariest router bits I've ever used. There's just something about a rapidly spinning hunk of steel that says, "you best be careful, lest ye suffer greatly."





The most interesting aspect of thius whole mini-closet, for me, was the access ladder. I wanted the ladder be attractive as well as functional. The ladder is almost more like a small set of stairs I think than a ladder with rungs. My design called for treads that had an arcing front edge, and an incline of approximately 75 degrees (not precise at all… I just eyeballed what looked good to me here.)

I took a leftover piece of solid oak that was approximately 12×14x3/4 inches, marked a line that would yield two identical -shaped side pieces for the ladder, and cut it on the band saw. Then I used a small can that had to draw two radiused curves at the top and bottom corners and trimmed them with the band saw. The picture below shows the curves marked on the board.



Then I went to make the treads. I started with a 1×4x12 piece of solid oak. I wanted to cut the tread so that the front edge was curved such that the width of the board was 3 1/2 inches in the center, and 2 1/4 inches on each end. I had used a nice simple gadget on the first bed build to get a consistent curve in a situation like this. Simply take a very this board, like veneer strip (mine was about 3/16" thick and 3/4 inch wide, and 14 inches long) and fasten a string taut at each end:



You can place a stick of varying length between the string and the wood strip, causing a "bow and arrow"-like effect:



This can be used as a guide to draw a consistent curve:





Cut this line carefully on the bad saw,



and then I used a sanding drum on my drill press to smooth the curve.



And *voila*! a finished tread. I made two of these.



I told myself at the beginning of this project that at some point I wanted to do something I hadn't done before, even if it wasn't strictly necessary, as long as a mistake wouldn't be too costly.

I decided to satisfy this that I was going to chisel out mortises in the ladder side pieces to receive the ends of the treads. It's definitely something I didn't nedd to do at all, but I had fun doing it, and they didn't turn out too bad:



For mounting the ladder, I made two rails out of solid oak and cut a 3/4 inch dado to receive the sides of the ladder. Wood screws countersunk from the "back" going into the ladder sides hold everything in place. Then #12 wood screws at the top and bottom ends hold the entire ladder assembly to the closet.



I'm leaving out the picture of the closet unit fully assembled, until the last blog entry. Coming soon.

Next time… The Bed Box.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *Mini-Closet Part 2: shelves, doors, access ladder*
> 
> Before making the doors, I bought a rail-and-stile router bit set. I didn't it when I build the first bed unit because the doors for that first project were simple painted panels. After cutting a some test pieces to get a handle on how to adjust the router, cutting out the pieces for the doors was a piece of cake. However, let me say that these are the scariest router bits I've ever used. There's just something about a rapidly spinning hunk of steel that says, "you best be careful, lest ye suffer greatly."
> 
> ...


Good progress


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## gbarteck (Jan 14, 2010)

*Completing it: The Bed Box, and Guides for the Desk, and Assembly(!)*

A surprise…My customer (14-year-old son) informs me…after the dresser and closet were completed that he would like an "extra long" twin mattress, rather than a standard. A little research shows that a standard twin is 75 inches long, and an extra long twin is 80 inches.

The nice thing about the modular design of this bed is that it can accomodate the longer bed box. But if I would have known before the dresser was built, I could have made it 5 inches wider (larger drawers most likely). Oh well. I was counting on mounting the guide rails for the pull-out desk onto the side of the dresser and the back of the closet. But now I have 5 additional inches to fill up, and I don't feel like building some sort of filler structure just to fill up space-I can't figure out much to do in 5 inches.

So what I've decided to do about the pull-out desk is to attach the guide rail assembly to the bottom of the bed box, and not bother trying to fill up the space.

But first things first.

The bed box is very simple, it is 40 inches wide by 81.5 inches long (interior space is 38.5×80 inches.) 1×12 boards are used for the sides and the headboard and footboard. A jigsaw was used to cut a portion of one of the side boards, so that you don't have to bang your shins climbing onto the mattress:





#10 wood screws hold the sides of the bed box together. Plugs fill the countersink holes and these are sanded smooth.

The bottom of the box is just a sheet of AC plywood-a cost cutting move-sanded, stained, and sealed so that it doesn't look too ugly, and it fits into a rabbet cut into the box sides, so it is not visible. Screws approximately every 6 inches are used to attach the bottom to the box sides.

Sanding, staining, some satin poly, and the bed box is done. You can see it in the pictures at the end of the blog.

After the problems I had with the pull-out desk on the first bed project. I came up with an adjustableguide rail mechanism. The rail itself is a 2"x2" solid oak piece with a 1 1/8 inch dado groove that the desktop slides through. The groove is lined with felt. Brackets are fashioned with a 3/16 inch "slider" with a lot cut in it. An insert nut is put into the back of the guide rail, and a bold with a knob handle is inserted through the slit in the slider, and screws into the insert nut. The position of the rail can be changed by loosening the knob(s), changing the position, and tightening the knob(s).



It feels like overkill to me a little bit, but it seems to hold up fine. I worry a little about its longevity, but worst case, a different guide system can be created. But at this point I'm calling it mission accomplished.

I have mentioned in an earlier blog that there is also a "filler" box that sits behind the dresser to support the bed box inthe corner behind the dresser. I haven't bothered writing further about it because it's just the quickest, dirtiest thing you can imagine, and it never gets seen, because it's tucked into a corner and is covered by everything else. Suffice it to say that the filler box has also been built and I can assemble the whole thing now!!!

Assembly is very straightforward. Connecting screws and insert nuts are used to fasten the bed box to the closet on one end, and the dresser on the other. The guide rails are attached to the underside of the bed box, and the guides are adjusted so the desktop is level.

Here are some niice pictures of the finished project:









I really enjoyed doing this project-I can check this one off of my project list. _On to the next one

I'm going to also post this to as a project page.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

gbarteck said:


> *Completing it: The Bed Box, and Guides for the Desk, and Assembly(!)*
> 
> A surprise…My customer (14-year-old son) informs me…after the dresser and closet were completed that he would like an "extra long" twin mattress, rather than a standard. A little research shows that a standard twin is 75 inches long, and an extra long twin is 80 inches.
> 
> ...


Good design and blog.


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