# Platform Bed



## raray (May 13, 2010)

*Inspiration and Requirements*

Soon I'll be delving into the design of my next project, a queen-size platform bed for my wife and myself to share. These first two images are the best examples of the overall look I'll be going for. I love the low set of these beds coupled with the overhang of the platform. They have a cleanliness of line that lends a lot of elegance to a simple structure and allows the material to be the star. The built-in side tables are a must for achieving this look.



















We don't use direct light for reading. I greatly prefer more ambient lighting and currently use torch lamps next to the bed. I also like the concept of built-in lighting, especially if the bed is going to be quite low to the ground making reaching up to turn off a lamp very inconvenient.



















The main kink in all of this is that I very much want some storage on the bed. Drawers along the edges, under the side tables, and a way to lift the platform so we can store some rarely used items under the bed itself are all on the wish-list.










So here are the requirements in order of importance:


Platform style, queen-size bed with built-in side tables.
All wood. No faux materials (technical terms?), no facings, no screws or nails. Glue is acceptable.
Tung oil finish. Natural character of the material should be prominent.
Should be able to break down into pieces for transport and storage.
Under-platform storage. Must be available without disassembling the bed.
Drawer storage under side tables.
Drawer storage on bed sides.
Built-in, ambient reading lights.

I'm pretty sure I am in over my head here, but that was true about my first two projects as well. I'm hoping to make use of SketchUp for the first time, but I'll take any suggestions y'all have for design resources. Also, if anyone knows of a good resource for lighting fixtures that could be adapted to this purpose please share!


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## botanist (Sep 17, 2008)

raray said:


> *Inspiration and Requirements*
> 
> Soon I'll be delving into the design of my next project, a queen-size platform bed for my wife and myself to share. These first two images are the best examples of the overall look I'll be going for. I love the low set of these beds coupled with the overhang of the platform. They have a cleanliness of line that lends a lot of elegance to a simple structure and allows the material to be the star. The built-in side tables are a must for achieving this look.
> 
> ...


Check out the book Beds, by Jeff Miller. He's got some good advice on the basics of bed design.


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## depictureboy (Jun 5, 2008)

raray said:


> *Inspiration and Requirements*
> 
> Soon I'll be delving into the design of my next project, a queen-size platform bed for my wife and myself to share. These first two images are the best examples of the overall look I'll be going for. I love the low set of these beds coupled with the overhang of the platform. They have a cleanliness of line that lends a lot of elegance to a simple structure and allows the material to be the star. The built-in side tables are a must for achieving this look.
> 
> ...


All wood. No faux materials (technical terms?), no facings, no screws or nails. Glue is acceptable.
Should be able to break down into pieces for transport and storage.

While possible these two requirements will add to the difficulty. I am in the process of building a solid wood wall unit and platform bed. I used screws EVERYWHERE they wouldnt be seen because it made things alot easier(i dont have 1300 clamps)....

if you want to break it down, you are going to not be able to glue key components together and that could affect stability, especially if you are not willing to use screws too.


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## raray (May 13, 2010)

*Starting With SketchUp*

I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


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## AaronK (Nov 30, 2008)

raray said:


> *Starting With SketchUp*
> 
> I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


love the headboard.


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## raray (May 13, 2010)

raray said:


> *Starting With SketchUp*
> 
> I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


Thanks Aaron! Figuring out how to stabilize the headboard is going to be one of my biggest challenges I think as all of those segments need to be separate pieces.


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## depictureboy (Jun 5, 2008)

raray said:


> *Starting With SketchUp*
> 
> I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


since the back of the bed is not going to be seen(i assume) you could make it flat and have the pieces secured under the platform part…

also if you havent thought about it, drawers underneath are a really nice addition to platform beds…


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## raray (May 13, 2010)

raray said:


> *Starting With SketchUp*
> 
> I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


Absolutely! Drawers are a major part of the design. I'm planning on two or three on each side and one under each wing.


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## BikerDad (Jul 16, 2008)

raray said:


> *Starting With SketchUp*
> 
> I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


If you're going to use drawers, be cognizant of *how* the drawers will be used. The more frequently you anticipate them being used, the easier they should be to use. A big factor in the ease of use is the size of the overhang. The further out the overhang projects, the harder it is to get to the drawer, and the less "open" area the drawer will have, unless you use full extension (or even projection) slides.


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## raray (May 13, 2010)

raray said:


> *Starting With SketchUp*
> 
> I may have been hasty when I said I would be starting my bed design "soon" in my last post, but design has finally begun. Due to some of the hardships I encountered when building my bookcase, I decided to get a bit more serious with my design tools and have taken on learning SketchUp to realize the design. What's shown here is far from done and much will need to be learned before I can complete the design, but this gives a good idea of where I'm headed.


The point about the overhang is a good one that I hadn't directly considered. Currently, the overhang is 3". How does that track for a user from your experience?


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## raray (May 13, 2010)

*Continuing in SketchUp*

Apparently I've got the itch to get this thing well and designed, so I've spent a good bit of time since yesterday in SketchUp working out some details - mainly with the drawers. Attached are some more images that show where I'm at. The materials shown were chosen really quickly just to give the model some more texture and I added in a figure to give a better idea of scale.

I hope the exploded view gives a clearer idea of the my next challenge, which is to figure out how to attach everything so that the bed is both stable and knockdown. I am also worried about the strength of the main support boxes. I've tried to remove as much mass as I could for both weight and cost reasons, but I'm not sure how much needs to remain for strength. To give an idea, the thinnest bits of the drawer bay walls are 1/2" thick.

Finally, I put this together in SketchUp using all nominal dimensions. Any thoughts on how that will affect construction? Do I need to recreate it being more mindful of actual dimensions?


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

raray said:


> *Continuing in SketchUp*
> 
> Apparently I've got the itch to get this thing well and designed, so I've spent a good bit of time since yesterday in SketchUp working out some details - mainly with the drawers. Attached are some more images that show where I'm at. The materials shown were chosen really quickly just to give the model some more texture and I added in a figure to give a better idea of scale.
> 
> ...


nice design!

a couple of pointers from past experience:

1. obviously if you are using materials of different dimensions than do not revert to your SU model for sizes as they will be off. I usually design everything in SU to the appropriate material thickness/size that I'll be using so that I can actually print out an exploded view of the model with dimensions on it and take it to the shop as a reference - still sometimes you have to use common sense and fit parts to size rather than cut all parts based on a plan only to find out later that some parts are too short.

2. be mindful of the drawers as you have the corner drawers opening 90 to one another - if you add certain drawer pulls this might block the other drawer from opening - make sure you plan accordingly in terms of space.

3. consider the rigidity of the headboard - it's very nicely designed, but hard to tell if it has enough strength to act as a headboard, or if it'll flex backwards (I don't say that it will - just something that I noticed and I would have checked if it needs extra bracing or not)

great work so far.


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## JoeRoseman (Mar 17, 2011)

raray said:


> *Continuing in SketchUp*
> 
> Apparently I've got the itch to get this thing well and designed, so I've spent a good bit of time since yesterday in SketchUp working out some details - mainly with the drawers. Attached are some more images that show where I'm at. The materials shown were chosen really quickly just to give the model some more texture and I added in a figure to give a better idea of scale.
> 
> ...


RA:
Did you ever post this design to the SketchUp library? Great work.


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