My Bed

From the time I was about four up until my sophomore year of high school, I slept in a generic bunk bed. It was a solid piece of furniture, although there was nothing special about it. The novelty of being able to switch from the top to the bottom whenever I wanted had worn off by the time high school started, and the bulk of the bed was annoying and unnecessary in my small room. I had acquired most of the important large woodworking power tools (table saw, bandsaw, radial arm saw, router table) from my grandfather at the end of freshman year, so early in my sophomore year, I decided to make real use of them for the first time by building myself a new bed.

I spent a lot of time on the internet at first, looking at pictures of wooden beds online. That research helped to inspire the design of my bed. First, I wanted it to be simple. Not only did my novice-level skills prevent me from taking on anything too complicated, from an aesthetic perspective I prefer visually simple pieces. Second, the mattresses of my bunk bed were recessed into the frame, meaning the mattress had to be lifted out to fit clean sheets onto it – not an easy task. I decided that my bed would leave the mattress level with the top of the frame and easily accessible. Third, I was outgrowing the mattresses on the bunk bed, one of which I planned to keep for the new bed. I didn’t want a new one, though, so I made sure to not include a footboard, allowing my feet to hang a little over the end unopposed. And finally, the bed needed one eye-catching detail, which I chose to be a thin bent-lamination for a headboard of sorts.

I had a significant supply of cherry, also courtesy of my grandfather, and I used a significant amount of the best wood to make the bed. I glued up boards in four layers to make gigantic square legs for each corner and used long wide boards as stretchers, the one with the best grain at the foot since it would be most visible. It was my first time doing real joinery (at least joinery that I would have to count on to keep me from crashing to the ground in my sleep), and I struggled with it. It’s not easy to fit a tenon into a mortise, and I spent a lot of time frustrated with myself for the slow pace and all the mistakes I made. Finally, though, the four sides came together just fine.

The bent lamination at the head is my favorite detail and was also the most challenging to make. To make it, I cut a long, square piece of wood into many thin strips and then glued them back together around a curved form. To make it even more difficult, I had to cut angled tenons to fit into the mortises in the head legs. Looking back at it, I am always a little surprised that I managed to do it. My success shows that patience goes a long way into making something difficult work out well, which I need to do better at remembering sometimes today.

The mattress rests on a sheet of plywood I cut to fit snugly into the frame, and it is the single most important lesson I learned about bed design. Having slept in a dorm room bed on springs, I now realize the importance of a box spring to making a bed really soft and comfortable. No matter, though. My bed is still the only one of my projects that I use every day (at least when I’m at home), and it’s still going strong. On the occasion when I’m asked to make my bed, I’m proud to be able to reply, “But I did make it!”, even though I’m being a bit of a smart-aleck!