A Pair of Chalkboards Beds

A Pair of Chalkboards Beds (closed)
Originally uploaded by cdavis9699@sbcglobal.net

This is a set of beds that were competed on 5-18-2008 shown here with the beds closed. They are built for two boys that shared the same room. These Murphy beds are built with a chalkboard and pegboard front and the beds are separated by a 24” bookcase with drawer and shelves behind a door. A drink try has also been added between the door and the drawers.

This is basically a Murphy bed with a flat face, which I call the Alpine. I painted the lower section with a chalkboard paint that can be purchased at any home store. On the upper section I used contact cement to attach a roll of pegboard material and then built a frame around that. I also added a chalk tray which I milled out of solid maple with a fluting bit.

Cherry Finish Excalibur

This is a Murphy bed that was completed on 5-9-2008. I call it the Excalibur. This bed has arched raised panels on the face along with fluting on the trim beside the doors. Above the fluting is the release leg that unlocks if from the cabinet and acts at the support feet when the bed is in the down position. Above the feet are rosettes that were cut in.

To tie it in to the customers existing furniture I matched the color and changed the crown up a little. The customer had some dental molding that they wanted to match. To get this to work I had to deviate from my standard cut list and make a taller header and sides. The dental molding wraps around and I needed to figure a break that would allow it to disassemble and reassemble to where the molding looked seamless.

The color is a dye stain followed by a wiping stain. The dye is a combination of brown and red dyes with a lot of thinner and the stain coat is Red Mahoney from Minwax. The cherry colors was matched off a customers drawer.

Here are some links to the building pictures

http://wwbeds.com/may08pictures/IM003587.JPG

http://wwbeds.com/april08pictures/IM003569.JPG

You can see more at our "Current Projects" page.

Full Boat

Full Boat
Originally uploaded by cdavis9699@sbcglobal.net

This is a boat bed that was completed on 4-15-2008. It is one my production bed that I build regularly. I’ve built this one in just about every size but king. Going from toddler to queen size. I even sent one to Qutar in the Middle East. I’ll be building two more in the next few weeks. One pink and one this same color.

I change something on this bed each time I build it. This time around I made the headboard legs removable. I used dowels and pocket screws for it to be reassembled. I also added air vents in the back, for safety reasons. The last few have had an air space under the lid, but to streamline production and to improve the appearance, I move them to the back.

Special Edition Baseball bed

This is a version of our popular Baseball bed that I completed on 2-6-2008. I’ve built many of these. This one, however, is a little different than our norm. It comes from our Special Edition line and I customized it a little more then normal.

On this bed, like our other baseball beds, the child get to help us customize the headboard. They fill out a form with the team names, the score, the stadium name, and their name. Usually I use authentic Louisville Slugger Signature bats, but this time the customer chose one of Louisville’s Pro Stock series called Hornsby. This is the same grade bat that the professionals use.

I then matched the wood type, which is Ash. The color was a little tricky. Ash stains out like oak. It’s easy to get the dark grain but the rest of the wood would be light. We ended up dying the wood with a brown dye and then stained it using a tweaked version of Minwax’s Red Mahogany.

All the information that the customer sent to us I had routed into the wood, but only after the finish was applied. This exposed the natural wood and made the cut sections lighter. The original plan was to paint the letters and numbers gold to match the bats, but after it was cut and loved the result of the natural ash, we decided that the gold would just cheapen the look of the bed.

This bed has a trundle and drawers under the bed and a matching nightstand.

Murphy bed Sideways Ross

This is a Murphy bed that was completed on January 26, 2008. This is a style that I build often, but this is the first sideways version. It is built in oak with 2 24” bookcases. Most of the time I keep the two sides symmetrical. This customer chose to have two different style bookcase.
See more at our website: www.wwbeds.com

Combination Loft

This is a loft that I completed on 1/24/2008. It is made from all pine and includes a desk, bookcase, chest and trundle. It also has a pass through on the back side that can be used for storage or a “club house”.

One of the large end panels I did something different. I didn’t want to use solid pine because it needed strength and I didn’t think the solid would hold up and that would have been a lot of gluing. If I used a plywood, I’d have to edge band or add trim along the edge. The edge band would be too square and the molding would have alter the design the customer saw on my original. What I did was to use a MDF core pine panel. I cut the end panels, like normal, rounded it over with a router and after it was stained and finished , the edge looked great. I got the idea from a door I saw on some cabinets a while back.

Panel Headboard and Nightstands

This is a custom headboard and couple nightstands that were built for the same customer as the “Wardrobe/Entertainment Center”. It was designed to match in style and color.

Headboard
The headboard was built with raised panels to match the style of the Wardrobe/Entertainment Center doors. I added some custom dental molding under the top lip. This is the same dental molding that I built to insert into the crown molding in the rest of the room.

Nightstand
On this nightstand, we deviated from the normal wood top, to a top that was made from Formica Solid Surface material. It gave the top had a granite look. We also used Formica laminate on a pull out drink tray above the drawers. Each of the drawers used full extension rails with birch drawer boxes. The base molding was a two piece molding, a solid square stock with a base cap on that. This matched the molding that I applied to the Wardrobe/Entertainment Center, with the exception that it was a little smaller.

The Wardrobe, nightstands, and headboard was one of the larger projects that I’ve completed on one order. I did separate it into two phases, which were separated by a week. This was to allow for carpet installation and I gave me a little breathing room.