Master Bedroom Set Ideas

[Daniel McCurdy]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some design ideas for a master bedroom set (armoire, night stands, king size bed, and vanity) I was planning on using oak since that's what I have a lot of, and I'd like to use the stuff like cherry and walnut more for the living spaces.

I'm not a huge fan of Queen Anne and Mission styles. Perhaps some variation of shaker? I'm going to have some nice sized crotch pieces that would look nice in some panels on the bed.

Open to ideas a suggestions. And, as always, pictures help TONS and are appreciated big time!

Thanks!!!

[Jim Becker]

Mixing oak and Shaker style isn't that far out of character...in fact, there are a number of Stickley pieces that bridge that gap as Mission has a lot of the simplicity that Shaker also espouses.

That said, consider your REAL furniture needs before you commit to some combination of various things. A bed and two nightstands...absolutely, in my book. But the format of other pieces should match how you want to actually use the furniture. Armoires are the original "closets", for example. Is that form what you really need or would some other chest of drawers design work better for you? Same goes for other bedroom occupants...what is the real need?

By example, almost all of our clothing is in our master closet. There is an abundance of hanging space as well as an equal abundance of both closed drawers and wire baskets. Out in the bedroom proper, we do need a chest, but it's function will be to house extra blankets, etc., as well as accommodate some electronics. It will likely be a design match for the two nightstands I've already build...and they have a generous top with only one row of small drawers as well as a shelf below for books. No real "storage". These were design based on what our actual needs are. Yours obviously will be different, but the point I'm making is take the time to really discuss how you'll use it. So many of the "standard" bedroom furniture assortments are ingrained marketing plays acquired over the years, rather than based on actual end-user needs.

[Daniel McCurdy]

Well put. The vanity is one my wife really wants to have, and it should fit well into the room. We do have a walk in, but its pretty small. There is also an additional small closet in the room. Both spaces are on my list of things to address though and see if I can make them more useful by using the space more efficiently.

From your advice, it would make sense for me to tackle that first and then figure out what we still need. The armoire or highboy was a consideration because there's a nice spot of open wall between 2 windows that would accommodate something like that. With that and the closet space better used, we could open up the room a lot.

[Jim Becker]

Daniel, one thing I decided long ago was to try and maximize closet usage and minimize furniture in the master bedroom. That worked well when we had the smaller room and it's created a real feel of luxury in the new one in our addition. Remember, you can always put a comfortable overstuffed chair in that space between the window instead of a chest of drawers! That gives you comfortable seating for a variety of uses as well as keeps an open feel and space for a nice piece of art. That said, the ultimate best solution is going to be the one that best meets your needs for clothing storage and comfort.

I do agree to start with the bed and nightstands...they go together. And that leaves you a nice canvas to ponder for the other things!

[Matt Meiser]

I've built a number of "shaker style" pieces for our bedroom from oak. We also have two amish-made purchased pieces that the one's I've made match. Sometime in the near future I'll actually be build a new bed since I've never been happy with the headboard I made as one of my first projects and I really don't like the metal frame its bolted to.

One of the purchased pieces is a huge 10-drawer dresser with two stacks of 5 drawers. To me, they obviously modeled it after some of the built ins commonly shown in some of the shaker books. I also built a variation of a shaker blanket chest from Wood magazine. Everything else is my own design inspired by various things I've seen.

[Daniel McCurdy]

I've built a number of "shaker style" pieces for our bedroom from oak. We also have two amish-made purchased pieces that the one's I've made match. Sometime in the near future I'll actually be build a new bed since I've never been happy with the headboard I made as one of my first projects and I really don't like the metal frame its bolted to.

One of the purchased pieces is a huge 10-drawer dresser with two stacks of 5 drawers. To me, they obviously modeled it after some of the built ins commonly shown in some of the shaker books. I also built a variation of a shaker blanket chest from Wood magazine. Everything else is my own design inspired by various things I've seen.

Hey Matt, sounds good. What type of finish did you go with? Do you have any pictures?

[Matt Meiser]

On all of these projects I used a mix of Minwax stains that I came up with to match the finish the Amish use. I used Minwax wipe-on poly over that. If I were to do it again, I'd use Target USL. But even the bed will probably get the wipe-on over fears of it not matching.

Purists would probably argue these aren't truly shaker style, but in the world of commercial furniture "shaker style" is much more loosely interpreted.

Heres a post on the night stands: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=33243&highlight=night+stand

And a photo of the blanket chest:
http://www.semiww.org/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php/members/matt_meiser/dscf1143.jpg

Apparently I don't have any of the bed, but like I said I'm going to replace it. The new one will probably have raised panels like the night stands, and probably a curved rail on top of the headboard. I have a mental design, but nothing on paper yet.

[Justin Leiwig]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some design ideas for a master bedroom set (armoire, night stands, king size bed, and vanity) I was planning on using oak since that's what I have a lot of, and I'd like to use the stuff like cherry and walnut more for the living spaces.

I'm not a huge fan of Queen Anne and Mission styles. Perhaps some variation of shaker? I'm going to have some nice sized crotch pieces that would look nice in some panels on the bed.

Open to ideas a suggestions. And, as always, pictures help TONS and are appreciated big time!

Thanks!!!

For some reason I'm a fan of the Anniversary set that Popular Mechanics did a while ago. The plans are still on their website. Of course you could embelish from there.

http://media.popularmechanics.com/images/tb_lead-lg-5.jpg

[Daniel McCurdy]

For some reason I'm a fan of the Anniversary set that Popular Mechanics did a while ago. The plans are still on their website. Of course you could embelish from there.

Very nice! Simple, yet interesting. Different wood, so I'll have to factor that in, but the wall color is very similar to what I'll be doing most likely.

Here's the link for anyone looking to save time:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/woodworking/1273356.html

I might just mix it up a bit and ebonize the oak, and accent in some natural colored maple.