I was trying to find a king-size bed frame that I liked and thought that most were seriously overpriced for the quality. I found this bed on Ana White's site, showed my husband the picture and the plans, and we decided to go for it. Why buy when you can build? I think that should be our motto.
If you've ever looked at my house ideas board on Pinterest, you will know that I would, of course, love for all my cabinetry and furniture to be white. However, I live in a house with three other people, and that will not fly. So although the plans show a white painted bed, we decided to build our bed out of walnut.
A trip back home to my father-in-law's woodworking shop, a rummage through some black walnut lumber that came from a tree that fell on their property when my husband was very young, and a trip to the lumber mill to buy the remaining pieces of walnut needed, we were ready to start the construction. My role was mostly as photographer and moral support, but I did help with sanding and cleaning, as well as run to Menards to get more polyurethane. It took us two days to build and get the first few coats of finish on. We had to leave the bed at my father-in-law's and I think he put a few more coats of finish on after that.
Here is the process in photos:
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| Here is the pile of lumber. |
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| Here are the shaped trim pieces. |
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| This is the outside frame of the headboard panel. |
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| This is the inset portion of the headboard panel all glued up. |
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| This is the assembled panel--trying out trims. |
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| Trim layout along with legs. |
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| Footboard. We decided to make all the legs beefier than the original plan called for. |
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| Gluing and clamping the top trim pieces. |
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| Here is the bed assembled before stain and finish. |
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| We used a mix of two stains to get the color we wanted. |
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| Late night stain and finish work. |
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| Another view of finish process. |
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| And more. |
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| And some more. |
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| And one last shot of it all. Well after midnight here. |
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| We used some special brackets in all the corners. |
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| Here is the finished bed assembled in our garage two weeks later--had to wait to transport it the five hours back home. |
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| My husband was sure we could bring the frame into the house in one piece. I told him no way would it fit through the door. I was right. Here it is, taken apart and reassembled, in our room. We added some plywood on top of the 2 x 4 frame in the previous picture. |
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| All made up so we could go to bed. |
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