A bed for Amelia
My grand-daughter Amelia has grown to the point where she needs to move from crib to bed. Her new bed design is a blend of Isla’s Bed and her older sister Olivia’s bed. It retains the best points of both. Key points include: Platform bed with storage underneath like Olivia’s bed Short foot board to […]
A dresser for Hadley
My grand-daughter Hadley needed a new dresser. Her old one was “commandeered” to use for her baby brother. The dresser needed to fit a rather narrow space in her room. The height allowance was flexible so I went with 4 feet. She will be able to reach into the top drawer in a few years. […]
Elegant Step Stools
Not every woodworking project needs to be a multi-week adventure. Sometimes something simple is needed. In this case it is some step stools. We now have 7 grandchildren ranging form newborn to 6 years. We have them over on a regular basis (3 days / week minimum during the school year). With the kids running […]
Doll Cribs
Our grand-daughters are at the age where they love to play with dolls. They are infatuated with the American Girl style 20″ dolls, now adding the American Girl Bitty Baby 15″ dolls. To go with them, they want additional “furnishings” beyond the cases I built last year. A couple of them have their hearts set […]
Isla’s Bed – Completion
After staining, I waited a couple of weeks to let the stain fully dry. The reason being that the gel stain used is oil based and with the winter weather, I needed to use a water based finish. My favorite for spraying in the winter is General Finishes Endurovar. It generally flows out well and […]
Isla’s Bed – Staining
This is another project where I am finishing first and assembling the completely finished pieces. This avoids issues with glue squeeze out and having to sand inside corners (which I hate to do). By finishing first, I can also spray the finish coats on while the pieces are horizontal , which mitigates my uneven spray […]
Isla’s Bed – Tenons and End Panels
With the mortises complete, it is time to start on the tenons. Now is the time that careful stock prep and thickness planing will start to pay off. The cross rails for the head and foot boards require tenons to fit into the legs. When making tenons on long pieces such as these, my favorite […]
Isla’s Bed Stock Prep and Joinery
The seemingly boring part of the project is preparing the stock. This includes cutting to rough length, jointing the faces, planing both sides, jointing a clean edge. Finally, ripping to width and cutting to length. Some of the steps desire more attention than they are commonly given. With rough sawn lumber, you need to surface […]
Isla’s Bed Design Features
I have made a number of beds. The design and construction techniques have evolved along the way to simplify the joinery, minimize fit-up trimming as well as sanding of the finished joints. This is while retaining the strength of mortise and tenon as well as frame and panel construction techniques. One of the key design […]
Isla’s New Bed
I had made a convertible crib / bed for my grand-daughter Isla a almost 4 years ago, see: https://bronkalla.com/blog/2018/03/04/crib-construction-start/. It had been successfully converted from crib to bed. However, Isla as a little sister Aubrey who now needs a crib. Rather than build another convertible crib / bed, and end up with yet more left […]
