Loft bed from the new shop

[Christopher Charles]

Hi all,

First, a big thanks to all of you for posting and contributing to the community here everyday. SMC has long been a source of information, inspiration and entertainment to me for many years. I usually read through posts while having coffee in the morning. And it has been a source of solace for those times when I have not been able to spend time in the shop!

The last year has been one of those years, in part because I moved and have been setting up a new shop in a new house, and in part because of other commitments such as a job, travel and teenage sons :)

The new house has been an excuse to do some projects and this was one of the first....way back in late summer. My youngest son is starting high school and asked for a "loft bed" when we moved into the new house. But he didn't want a bunk-bed style frame. So here's what we came up with...

[Christopher Charles]

The bed frame is essentially the largest dovetail box I've built. I chose poplar because it was reasonably price, available from a small local hardwood seller we have in our small town and I'm expecting the bed to be used for 3-4 years before the youngest flies the coop. In other words, I want to do something good, but 'heirloom' (whatever that means these days) wasn't necessary.

Here's the start of the new shop and planks in the raw. The shop is a double car garage with a little over half devoted to work space.

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The drawers on the planer in the back were another project--i built a carcass for drawers that had been under the beds I'd made for the boys when they were wee lads.

The first step was to plow a rabbet in the long rails.
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And then it was an exercise in dovetailing, just at a larger scale than I'm used to. Gang-cutting the tails:

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[Christopher Charles]

One challenge was to mark the pins on a rail long enough for a twin xl mattress (80" long). I used the table saw to hold one end and clamped the tail board in place:

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Nothing too special after that, just an awkwardly large piece, for which I could have worked out the clamping better because some of the joints didn't pull together as tightly as I would have liked. But that's just between me and all of you (sigh).

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[Christopher Charles]

A couple quick coats of shellac and wax and it was ready to hang. The frame mounted to rabbeted battens bolted to the wall and one corner was suspended by bolt in the ceiling and an NRS strap through some mortices in the frame (NRS, Northwest River Supply, is a whitewater rafting supplier in town and these straps get used for all manner of things here in the PNW...).

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And, hah! It has been so long since I did this project, I forgot that the plowed rabbet in the second picture above was for another project (a shelf piece for a closet)! So no rabbets were harmed in the making of this bed!

The last task was to brighten up the desk with more than just the floor lamp. A couple LED strips later and it is starting to look like a spaceship from below...

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This was a fun, fairly quick project. Most importantly, he's happy with it! My shop time since has been consumed with running circuits in the shop, prepping the shop for some sheet rocking, installing lights in the shop and house... you get the idea. I have been able to do some milling and prep work for a tool chest over the past couple months and am finally getting to the joinery. I'll post that in a separate thread soon and will update as I go. For now, here's a shot of the top in progress.

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Thanks to all of you for being SMC, and for taking a look.

Best,
Chris

[ken hatch]

Chris,

Nice project. It'll be great to see the shop finished, love the window over the bench. Wish I could figure out how to do the same with my shop.

ken

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks Ken. It will be great to see the shop finished! And I am grateful for the window--it even faces north.

Best,
Chris

[brian zawatsky]

Came out great, Chris. I second Ken's notion about the big window by your bench. I envy you guys who are able to get natural light in your shops, as mine is subterranean. I suppose however that I should be grateful for 2/3 of the footprint of the foundation in which to make a shop space (the rest belongs to my wife lol). As they say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

[lowell holmes]

What behavior of yours would prompt the need for a bunk bed in the shop? Just curious :)
Nice job.

[Flamone LaChaud]

Which behavior of yours would prompt the need for a bunk bed in the shop? Just curious :)
Nice job.

Fixed it for you.

[Flamone LaChaud]

Oh I remember the days spent doing dovetails on my daughters loft bed . . . not necessarily fondly mind you, but I remember them. Of course I had to be adventurous and do them full blind. Before she slept in it the first time I invited a friend of mine from the ministry to come and pray over the bed to cast out all the curses I invoked making it.

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks Brian. The window is great. And yeah...the grass is greener sometimes. Or in this case, warmer--the garage is not insulated and stays about 40 deg this time of year, so I'm envious of my friend's basement shop! I did just add a heater, but still have a bunch of insulating to do.

Lowell, LOL! Much bad behavior resulted in a _new_ shop thanks to a 'domestic rearrangement' (fortunately as good as these things go...); the bed is for the house from the new shop :) (w/out going into the detail, it all worked out well and relatively smoothly as these things go).

Flamone, I may need to call your friend!