Thread: The bed and bedhead: final photos

It started with a King size Mission-style bed I built 25 years ago ...





Lynndy had two complaints: firstly, she is an extremely light sleeper and would wake if I so much as twitched or rolled over. I had attempted to deal with this by including twin mattresses, which could be pulled apart (by an inch), if she felt disturbed. (As an aside, it is amazing the number of friends of ours who complain of the exact situation. Their solution is to play musical beds in separate bedrooms. They are not happy. This is a big reason I have posted this build). Secondly, Lynndy is the main bed-maker (I do make it as well. I promise). The high tailboard makes this a difficult and extra-physical process. She wanted a bed without a tail board.


What did I want? A happy wife? Okay, and a more modern-looking bed. I was over the heavy Mission style.


I built two single beds, which could be used as a single, kingsize bed. Here is one ..





The key feature was the absence of any lips on the inside edges which would impede the mattresses. They slide together and feel like one. They can be pulled away, again by an inch, and this isolates vibrations (= happy wife).






In line with isolating vibration, the bedhead could not be connected to the beds. It needed to be, instead, attached to the wall behind the beds.


My design choices were, firstly, to have a slim, clean built, and to do this I hid the bench bolts inside the rails.






Secondly, to have a modern version of a Mission-style bed for the bedhead. The old slats were re-sawn and laminated to created a slight curve ...






We left off last time at this stage. Now to complete the build ....


As the straight rails connected to curved posts, there was shaping to do to blend them together ..








The bedhead was also to be hung using French Cleats. It was important, when all was said and done, that the posts lay flat against the wall. The top rail at the rear of the bedhead was lower, and the French Cleat would fit here ...





One complication here is that the cleats needed to be shaped to fit the taper of the rails ..





The cleat ran from 150mm inside the posts to provide some positioning options, if needed (cleat seen at top - the bottom piece is for the wall) ..





It is difficult to photograph the bedhead and capture the angles and detail as the wood is dark, and the lighting in my workshop is not great. But here is the bedhead on the bench ...





The curve is gentle but more evident in person. Not so evident here ...



The slats look like a one-piece. The laminations are not evident ...





On the bedroom wall ...





Here can be seen the French Cleat, but also some of the fine details not evident before: the surround has a 6mm chamfer; all the other edges had the edges broken with a block plane (i.e. very fine) to retain the clean lines internally.





The bedhead closer up ...






... and the complete build ...





Happy wife. Happy life.


Regards from Perth


Derek