Platform Bed with Nightstand

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
Messages
8,622
Location
Thomasville, GA
This is another commission piece - commisioned by LOML! What would I do without her to keep me busy with projects? :huh: We had talked about about doing this project for the past 2-3 years. The design is a basic platform bed but we couldn't decide on material until she inherited an old (antique?) headboard. Since the headboard is red oak, that took care of the material decision. Now, we're off to the races. Yeah, right!


The bed is the first project I've drawn using SketchUp. Thanks to Dave Richards, I got past my brain cramp and was able to get this thing modeled. Partly as practice, I combined the models of the bed, nightstand and some other objects into one SU file. and that's what you see as my avatar for now. I guess I'll need to add a copy in this thread since I'll change my avatar sometime. I was actually making some progress on this project while still involved with my credenza build. Whenever I hit a point where I was, in essence, "watching paint dry", I'd mill some of the red oak. Several panel glue-ups are part of both pieces and I've already done those as you can see below.

Bed_NS_01a.jpg


The top of the nightstand is dressed up a bit with what was going to be veneers that I would slice from a red oak board. Then, I remembered I had a couple of pieces of 3/4" red oak plywood left from a previous project. I checked the dimensions and was able to cut four angled pieces from the plywood to make the field of the nightstand top. I was wondering if I'd ever find a use for that plywood!

Bed_NS_01b.jpg


This graphic will give you a general idea of how the bed will go together. Internally, it's two matching "coffins", as LOML tagged them. The four drawers provide a lot of storage, of course. The sections at the head of the bed have no drawers because there will be a nightstand on one side and a chair on the other. We can still access those areas for storage by sliding the mattress down and lifting a cover from it.

Bed_QueenPlatform01.jpg


I'm not going to document as much as I did on the credenza, but I will try to get photos of each major step,. Y'all have a great weekend!


Edit: Here's an image from a combined SketchUp file showing the bed and nightstand.

GuestRoom.jpg
 
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We had talked about about doing this project for the past 2-3 years.

wow, you have a very patient wife.

my king platform in my bedroom, besides the drawer fronts you have on the ends, is pretty much identical to your design. It came in two pieces, and it was all put together once they got it upstairs. The seam is hardly noticed.
all the internal pieces used in the basic box construction were made of mdf, as was the platform.
 
... My king platform in my bedroom, besides the drawer fronts you have on the ends, is pretty much identical to your design. It came in two pieces, and it was all put together once they got it upstairs. The seam is hardly noticed.
all the internal pieces used in the basic box construction were made of mdf, as was the platform.

The bed in our master bedroom is a king platform I built. You can see it here on my website. LOML saw a similar unit I was building during a tenure in a cabinet shop. The king is built in three sections. All of the internal and platform pieces are plywood in our case.
 
Update 3/27/12

Monday and Tuesday were spent cutting down sheets of 1/2" sandee ply for the internal support panels for the platform bed. This involved cutting notches for the toe kicks and a cleat that will be used to attach the oak side rail. I also did more milling operations on the red oak to get it to final dimensions. Internal support panels were placed in dadoes in the long center panel and secured with glue and screws.

In this photo, I have one of the two sections rolled onto its side so I can attach the toe kick parts. I added small cleats so I can attach the kick from inside to hide the screws.
Bed_NS_02a.jpg

Here's the other section to which I have already attached the toe kick parts and upper rail cleat.
Bed_NS_02b.jpg

The two internal sections of the bed are ready for sealer. That'll probably happen tomorrow.
Bed_NS_02c.jpg
 
Update 04/06/2012

Alright, you guys! No, I didn't fall asleep on the job! I really have been working on this project steadily, but there have been a couple of things that took me a while - new territory.

I needed to make inside and outside radii on a couple of pieces to build up the corners of the bed. I had never had a reason to make cove cuts on a table saw before, so I took my time - a lot of time - looking at videos of different techniques. I made a jig (seen below) and practiced on a couple of hunks of 2x4 before committing the oak to the blade.
bed_ns_120406a.jpg

Here's how the pieces will stack on the corner of the bed.
bed_ns_120406b.jpg

I milled up more of the pieces for both the bed and nightstand, so they're read as I work through test-fitting everything.
bed_ns_120406c.jpg

I had a sheet of 1/2" birch plywood that kept getting in my way, so I went ahead and cut it down for the drawer sides, front and back for the bed.
bed_ns_120406d.jpg

I milled all of the rail parts to final dimensions and glued the top rail and a filler piece together. The filler will serve as the attachment to the bed frame. In this photo, I've got the rails clamped in place for fitting. I'll screw them on after marking for final dimensions.
bed_ns_120406e.jpg

bed_ns_120406f.jpg

I said in a previous post that I would start spraying sealer, but have held off until I have more parts ready.
 
Update 04/13/2012

This weeks' effort included moving along on the nightstand. I cut down some 1/2" sandee ply for the corebox and milled a couple more pieces of oak for the exterior. I've done all of the roundover routing but still have a fair amount of sanding to do. It's starting to resemble the plan.

Bed_NS_041312a.jpgNS_GuestRm.jpg


I also worked on massaging the radius corner pieces together for the bed. Silly me, I hadn't shown any mounting cleats on my plans, so I had to work those out. No big deal - just chop up some scrap so I can actually attach the oak to the corebox!

Bed_NS_041312b.jpg


Have a fun weekend! :wave:
 
lookun good bill how is that new router insert working?

It's working about as well as the old one. Wait - it IS the old one! I've been looking at new lifts to replace the one in my table, but just can't justify the cost - yet! I ran the roundovers on the nightstand on my router table and will probably do the bed rails the same way.
 
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