Daily Update November 17, 2009

Daily Update for November 17, 2009


You can watch us build this live from our Current Projects page at wwbeds and poggyskids.com Also at the site photographs are posted each day of our work.

To see when your project will be built, check out our Customer Status link.

Platform Bed

These are some platform beds that were competed in October 2009. They both use full size mattresses, but the platform is about 75” wide. I made a row of cabinets to where they fit on the side of the bed and they fit on top of the platform.

I made the cabinets in 3 pieces, but where they appear as one. The dividing face frame hides the seam between the cabinets. The top is made in one piece to also make it look to be one piece.

One of the beds has a headboard where the other one doesn’t. They both go to the came customer, just one child choose to have a Media Stand instead of the headboard. The one with the headboard will have a frige in that open spot under the headboard.

Here are a few building videos:
Abby Headboard cut
Headboard Banding
Abby Headboard Sanding
Abby Build
Alex and Abby's bed
Platform build
Cabinet Cut/Rip
Cabinet Bainding
Bookcase Building
Door Parts
Door Preps
Door Building
Door Sanding
Abby and Alex Drawers

Building pictures can be found a my blog on Lumberjocks.com

You can watch us build this live from our Current Projects page at wwbeds and poggyskids.com Also at the site photographs are posted each day of our work.

To see when your project will be built, check out our Customer Status link.

This is a platform bed that was completed in October 2009. It has a 15 ¾”h drawer unit for storage, a panel headboard, and a small frame for the platform. The finish on it is a simple Danish Oil to keep that natural look.

Here is the raw footage of the build (sorry about video quality still using backup computer):
Hutchison Drawer Cut/rip
Sanding
Hutchison Sanding/Pocketing
Hutchison Drawer Pre-Assembly
Hutchison drawer build

You can watch us build this live from our Current Projects page at wwbeds and poggyskids.com Also at the site photographs are posted each day of our work.

Pair of Murphy Beds

This is a pair of murphy beds that were built and shipped unfinished. They were completed in October 2009. What is unique about these are they are apart of the same unit. The two queen wall beds are separated by a 18" bookcase. The Hudson Bay as I call it is simply the Alpine with some added molding. I say simply but it's not that simple. There is 32 pieces, 64 in all that has to be cut and mitered on both ends. Each piece of molding is hand sanded, fit, attached, and sanded again. There is a lot of labor involved.

The overall width of this unit is 146" at the base and 148 1/2" (12', 4 1/2") at the crown. That's not bad though two beds and a bookcase in a little over 16 square foot of floor space.

For building pictures and video click here.

Write-up at Woodshop News

Woodshop News, a national trade magazine called and wanted to interview me. They had some interest in my live video feed. Their digital version of their magazine is just out and the story was posted on their website. It's a short but to the point article about the camera system and how it is used for both marketing and with customer relations.

Check it out at Woodshop News.

Get a peek into my shop at wwbeds.com

This is the finished product of the single beds built for the Chi Omega dorm rooms. Ten of these were built. They were completed in June 2009.

They feature a large head board designed with bookcases at the top and small cell phone shelf, which most students use as an alarm clock. Below the small shelf is a hole for the charging cord.

For storage the bed has 4 extra deep drawers with full extension rails. This gives over 5 ½ cubic feet of drawer space. Add the false panel on the other side with the doors and you have over 22 cubic feet of space.

Product dimensions:
Overall 79 ¾”h x 40 ½”w x 76 ½”d
Drawer Pedestal Height 23”
Usable drawer box space 7 ½”h x 27”w x 16”d (each)
False panel useable space 23”h x 19 ½”w x 64”d
Door opening 19”h x 15 ½”w

Sofa Murphy Bed Closed

Sofa Murphy Bed Closed
Originally uploaded by cdavis9699@sbcglobal.net

This is a bed that was completed in February 2009, It is my standard Euro style with quite a few modifications. One of the new design features of this one is the sofa. This is a sofa that I designed to be placed in front of the bed when it is in the up position. When the bed is needed the cushions come off and the bed folds down between the arms.

Another feature of this bed is the sliding bookcases. These bookcases are designed to be above the sofa and in front of the bed when closed. When the bed is in used the bookcases slide out of the way. I used a standard by-pass door system and used both tracks rollers on each bookcase. This added stability and more strength to the unit.

The third feature is the inset bookcases. For the bookcase drawers on the side to work, I needed some space for the arms of the sofa. I needed about eight inches so I build a couple bookcases that were turned inward. This allowed me to have some extra space without wasting it.

Orginal Train bed

I am currently building a train bed and blogging about it (see Train Blog) Some of you have been watching so I thought I’d share this one that I built in 2004. This is a bunk bed version, unlike the one I am building now.

Here are some building pictures of the new one. I didn’t have any saved of this first one:

For more building pictures see my Current Projects link at wwbeds.com or poggyskids.com. See what we are doing live:

-- Watch live video from our shop. http://wwbeds.com/live.htm

Red Hudson Bay

This is a queen size Murphy bed that was completed in December 2008. I call this style the Hudson Bay. It is built from maple with a little redder than normal cherry finish. I matched this color off a emailed picture, which I normally don’t do. Especially since colors aren’t consistent from monitor to monitor. What I did was to make a few different shades of what I thought the color was and sent it to the customer. The color ended up being a red dye, almost pine when applied, and then a Red Mahogany stain.

I built this one and held it for a few weeks while I built the desk (see Hunt Bookcase the customer order mid-stream of building the bed. So I got to keep it on my floor for a while. The delay was enhanced, because when I finally got all of it shipped. The shipping company totally destroyed the center/pull down section before it made it to the customer. It was sent back. I replaced just about all the center section and sent it back to the customer. The time from when I had it built to when the customer actually had it set up was about two months. Most of that time was waiting for the first time to be shipped an the shipping company getting it back to us. My turn-around on the rebuild was only a couple days.

I just received an email from the customer, which I proudly posted on by Testimonial page.

Gary,
I meant to e-mail earlier but we got the bed and my husband and a friend installed on Sunday and it’s beautiful. We love all the furniture and want to thank you so much for everything, especially handling the Roadway issue. I am eight months pregnant and working and I really appreciate that I did not have to deal with Roadway on the damaged bed.

It has been a pleasure and we would be happy to give a testimonial for your site or feel free to have anyone e-mail us as a happy customer.
Feed back like this make it all worth it. Most of the time in any industry the only feed back is the bad stuff. When things are going good most people don’t think to send that.

Here are some building pictures.

For more building pictures see my Current Projects link at wwbeds.com or poggyskids.com. See what we are doing live:

Panel Poster Bed

This is a bedroom set that I completed in June 2005. It was built in oak and featured raised panels on the head and footboard. One thing that I did different was to turn the center panel horizontal. Normally I outsource the panel work, but on this one I built it myself, mainly because of the sideways panel. I didn’t want to confuse my supplier. This change in the panel gave it a little different look to it. The headboard also featured some hand forged ironwork.

The case goods are a combination of a face frame look but built like they are frameless. The sides look like a 2” face frame, but I made it appear to be 2” thick. I sandwiched two ¾” boards and a ½” thick inside frame together to make a frameless 2” thick side panel. I also added rope molding and hand built the base molding in layers.

Here are some pictures of the case goods:
Dresser and Mirror

Chest

Bookcase

Here are some building pictures:

For more building pictures see my Current Projects link at wwbeds.com or poggyskids.com. See what we are doing live:

-- Check out the video live from our shop. http://wwbeds.com/

Basketball Bed

This is a new design of mine. It wasn’t order by a customer. I just wanted see what we could come up with for basketball, since we’ve had the baseball bed for so long. It is real similar to the Baseball bed in that it uses the same headboard pattern, side rails, and post. I didn’t put anything on top of the post, like the bats for the baseball bed. I did have some mini basketball knobs I thought about topping the post with, but they were too small and looked out of place.

It has a customizable headboard and footboard. The child can pick their stadium name, the player’s name and number, the score, and the name and number on the footboard.

I finished this bed in a flat black lacquer and a burgundy lacquer that I had left over from another job. I really like the paint scheme so I might standardize the color combination for this bed. I may tweak the color a little to match the burgundy drawer in the nightstand and chest.

Here are some more pictures

For more building pictures see my Current Projects link at wwbeds.com or poggyskids.com. See what we are doing live:

-- Check out the video live from our shop. http://wwbeds.com/

Display Euro Murphy bed

At the end of the year I started selling off some of my display Murphy beds. Because of this I was left with a bare showroom. I wanted to put something on the floor that I haven’t had there before. I decided on the Euro Murphy bed. This is a bed that I’ve built about five times before. This will be the third in this color combination.

I used maple wood with cherry accents. I edged all boards, whether they were plywood or lumber, with cherry. Then put two strips of cherry down the face. Once it is lacquered, it reviled very nice contrast.

The bookcases are 24” wide and don’t have the usual drink trays. Instead of the drink tray I put a regular drawer on the left side and a pull out desk on the right. The desk pulls out on full extension rails and then the laptop drawer pulls out from that. This allows plenty of leg room for working. A printer can be placed in the cabinet below. Right now I just have adjustable shelves down there. I may change that to a pull out printer tray.

The doors glass has a film on it to give it that Venetian blind effect. I get this film from Outwater The next one that I do I may try some etched style glass.

I currently have two more of this style on order and will be working on them in the next week. I also have another customer that is ready to order one too. I don’t push a particular style but it is weird how my different style come in spurts like this.

Here are some of the others that I’ve done in the past. As I was writing this, I was thinking I have built about 4 or 5 of these, but after posting the pictures I realize there was much more that slipped my mind.












For more building pictures and to see the two that I’ll build in the next couple weeks see my Current Projects link at wwbeds.com or poggyskids.com. See what we are doing live:

Quick Ship Plan

Here at wwbeds.com we have just implimented a Quick Ship Plan. Our most popular murphy bed, the Alpine, in both oak and maple are built and ready to be stained a color of choice. Usually we can have the Alpine shipped in less than a week.

We were already geared up for the Christmas rush and made some extra parts. We will keep them in rotation. As soon as we sell one we'll replace it. Using this system we should keep the system going with the 1 week lead time.

In the near future we will add the Bullock, then the Ross, and maybe the Excalibur.

New Showroom Cam

We have now added a Showroom cam to our live video feed. We put this camera in our showroom area for when there is no activity in the shop, which is common on Saturdays. This will also be helpful to us when we're all needed in the shop and have to abandoned the showroom. We can keep an eye on who comes in.

For now the camera will be on the same feed, which means that you'll only see one image at a time and will still be controlled by my "tool belt remote". In the near future I plan on have a Showroom feed of it's own. I'll then be able to run them side-by-side so our customers can see what's going on in the shop and showroom. I will also have picture-in-a-picture capabilities. Stay tuned for more updates.

You can watch us live from our Current Projects page at wwbeds and poggyskids.com Also at the site photographs are posted each day of our work.

My Girls Beds

This is a couple Murphy beds that were completed 12-23-2008. I built them for my two daughters. I designed it to cover an entire wall. The two beds are separated by a desk with shelves. Each of the beds and the desk all have a three stage touch sensor lights for reading or to be used as a night light. The lights over the bed I added a mercury switch to shut the lights off when the bed is in the up position.


I finished it in just a natural maple with two coats of pre-cat lacquer to match a chest and a converted changing table that I built before.

I gave this to them on Christmas but were not able to install them until New Years day. We also painted the room Tinkerbell Green.

Here are some more pictures: (Put you mouse on the picture for a discription)