Thread: Original Design Arts and Crafts Era Bed

After getting my shop set up, the first thing I had planned was to build a bed for my girlfriend and me. It was something I had been talking about for a long, long time. When I was in Brisbane, I simply didn't have the workshop to tackle something like this. It wasn't level enough, it was too small, and there were several other reasons. So I always knew that this was going to happen when I moved home to the USA.

It evolved over a couple of years from a simple platform with some nice boards skirting a mattress, to something similar with a slab as the headboard. Over that time, however, my taste in furniture changed somewhat drastically, and I began to be more interested in embellished, traditional, period forms.

So, for a long time, I've wanted to build a piece of definitively Arts and Crafts furniture. After acquiring a large lot of very high quality Northern Silky Oak (Cardwellia sublimis, or Lacewood in the US) which came home with me, the choice was simple.

I worked as a low level professional woodworker for three months recently, and one of the most important things I picked up was that having a scaled drawing and a cut list is super valuable. My previous "seat of the pants" approach was fundamentally inferior. So I went to the art supply store, spent sixty bucks on drafting gear, and got to it.

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It would have some large, horizontal boards with stepped edges and slats between them. In the center would be a frame and panel. I drew this, and after staring at it for a while, I determined that I would add some rebates around the edges of the framework. This would give the piece some depth, which would be valuable, because the stock for the framework would be around an inch thick.

I wanted to cut these rebates by hand using a combination of a rebate plane, a carver's V-Tool, and finishing them with scratch stocks, so I made two of those, one for the bulk of the material and one for the tight corners.IMG_0399.JPGIMG_0400.jpg

I decided to build and finish the footboard first. I had one really incredible piece of NSO for it which was over 14" wide and perfectly quartersawn, with the medullary rays extending the entire width of the board. Some true, once in a lifetime stuff, and, for all intents and purposes, unobtainable in the US. I also have some phenomenal post material which is perfectly sawn with the growth rings at a diagonal to the sides. Here are some photos of the footboard construction.

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The steps were cut by hand with a bow saw, and then fared and finished with rasp, spokeshave, chisel, and a 1" float, which was an invaluable tool on this build (thanks, Brett).

With the best intentions, I gave it a solid go at cutting the rebates by hand with the V tool and scratch stocks. I wanted it. Bad. I probably spent three hours cutting one of them on the bottom of the footboard. It was after this that a voice echoed in my head. It was that of a wise man from Pullenvale repeating some of the most important advice I've ever heard about working with hand tools:

"Sometimes life's too short, mate."

So I shelved the scratch stocks, got out the router, and made short work of the rest of the embellishment rebates on the project.

The headboard was intimidating. I wasn't sure how to cut those stepped sides along the top and bottom of the slatted section cleanly and accurately enough to then cut the M&T joints cleanly for the slats.

So I made plunge cuts on the table saw to cut the steps, then I used a horizontally mounted router mortiser (which I'm lucky enough to have access to in my shop) to cut the mortises. These two machining steps made the whole thing possible as far as I'm concerned. Cutting all of that by hand would not have turned out well. Here are some photos of the headboard being built.

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It's a full mortise and tenon construction, with all of the tenons cut by hand, and the large mortises drilled on the drill press and then finished with a mortise chisel. Basically, all of the joinery is cut by hand to the point of practicality, but I didn't waste hours of my life chopping mortises by hand.

The finish is two coats of Danish Oil and a coat of Wipe on Poly. I'm super happy with how it looked, but, man, what a pain to apply.

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I'm talking two hours per application. Seriously time consuming.

But it turned out great!

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At this stage I've gotta give a shout out to elanjacobs, who gave me the idea for the knockdown joinery I would use. They're Maxifix camming fixtures by Hafele. Rock solid. A bit finnicky to install, but they work phenomenally.

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The framework of the bed was sold to me as "cypress". Being on the West Coast of the US, the most likely species is Cupressas macrocarpa, aka Monterey Cypress or Macrocarpa Pine in Aus.

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We have a latex mattress, so 3/4" ply was screwed down to that.

Here's the first official assembly of the bed (before the framework was put in):

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And here she is in my bedroom, where I hope it stays for a while to come.

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I'm super happy with it, and so is SWMBO (which is all that really matters). I borrowed the stepped structure from some work, both furniture and architecture, by Greene and Greene, and some aspects of it reflect some work by Gustav Stickley, like the use of quartersawn material in contrast with flat sawn, as well as the slats and tapered posts. The rebates were intended to add depth to an otherwise flat framework, which is more of an art deco technique I suppose.

So, at the end of the day, I applied a lot of techniques to make something I really like, that I definitely think fits the bill of "period style", but is also, without a doubt, an original work.

I hope you guys like it too.

Now on to the next project!

Cheers,
Luke