Bazil
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DIY Bed, hopefully pics soon!My task for the day is to get somewhere near finished with my bed project.
The story so far.....
Started making it around about 2 years ago, all by hand with no machinery, at night until about 11pm, all mortice and tenon joints and it was a four poster with something like 50 mortices to cut and 50 tenons all cut with a hand saw and chisel.
So, as the project was a bit too much at the time it was relegated to the shed and a cheap metal bed was bought in replacement.
So, as the metal bed is now too uncomfortable to sleep in as the base of the bed has bent with our weight (we are not overweight!! crap bed!) I am cutting down the total size of the bed to become a normal bed with a headboard and footboard and hopefully get it pretty much done today.
I am going to draw up the plans and dimensions for both the four poster and the standard bed and post them later.
The four poster materials at the time cost me around £100, that included a few new tools, but the wood is only cheap softwood, but sanded up it looks the business (for the look I am after).
Spend a bit more on hardwood, maybe £300 and I reckon the bed would be in the £1000 or more price range. Thats well under what I have seen bespoke hand made beds go for on eBay.
I was thinking about doing it as a little source of income to supplement our self-sufficiency when we get to it, including my beehive composters and other things.
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marigold
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I just have a mattress on the floor  .
You'll need to speed up a bit if you want to make useful money, but it sounds like a good idea.
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Bazil
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| marigold wrote: | I just have a mattress on the floor .
You'll need to speed up a bit if you want to make useful money, but it sounds like a good idea. |
Yeah, a bed every 2 years isn't highly profitable 
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dottyspots
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I look forward to seeing it finished 
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Nanny
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| marigold wrote: | I just have a mattress on the floor .
You'll need to speed up a bit if you want to make useful money, but it sounds like a good idea. |
we did for some time as well
then a futon with a mattress on it
quite comfy if a bit in convenient when you want to sit on the side of the bed to put your sox on...................
now we have a memory foam mattress and i have to say it is the best thing we ever bought.............
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marigold
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I had a futon for years too, loved it.
I had a little lie-down on a friend's memory foam mattress a while back and was amazed at how comfy it felt. Scary prices though  .
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Bazil
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Right, no pictures at the moment, but hopefully later or tomorrow!!!
Got it finished on the day of the post, granted most of the hard work was done 2 years ago when I first had a go at it, but I was at it solid all day.
The metal bed we were using had metal bars across it which had a bend of about 2 INCHES!!!!! I put a thick shelf across it to get it more level in the end, but it didnt help, shame considering it was an expensive decent mattress.
Anyway, so the main objective was a solid sturdy bed, WITH NO POSSIBLE CHANCE OF IT BENDING and that is what I built. Now that mattress feels like new!!!!
Which is good because we feared the cheap bed may have knackered it.
Just got to replace the pozi screws in the brackets for black jap pan heads (for looks, I have the screws already (second hand!)) and give it a final sanding off, we are leaving it natural wood colour and sanded down enough to offer no risk of splinters, very rustic.
I will give a full list of materials I used with the pictures and dimensions and any help for anyone interested.
I made this one higher than a normal bed, the top of the mattress is around 8" or more higher but it looks perfectly in proportion for a king-size.
I will be right back with pics!
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Frewen Feltmaker
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Looking forward to those pics
I can feel a poll on what kind of bed you sleep on coming....
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Bazil
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Here you go......
Also, slept in it on New Years Eve, so new year, new bed.
And trust me, the pictures dont do the wood justice, it looks fantastic in a rustic / slightly sanded state.
Below: With mattress on (obviously)
Below: Mattress off and showing the slats of wood
Below: Different view, those two pieces of wood running lengthways under the slats are 4"x2" timbers for extra strength.
Below: The brackets I used to hold the head and foot boards to the side runners showing 3 of the black pan head screws and the rest of the pozi screws. there are brackets top and bottom of the runners on every corner, so 8 in total and you can rock the bed as hard as you like and it wont move!
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Green Rosie
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Wow - well done.
So glad to see it has a square headboard. We bought a very comfortable bed (for sleeping) but it has a curved headboard so when you lean against it for reading it tips your head at a funny, not very comfotable angle. Result is I snuggle down to read and invariably fall asleep after about a page 
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Bazil
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| Green Rosie wrote: | Wow - well done.
So glad to see it has a square headboard. We bought a very comfortable bed (for sleeping) but it has a curved headboard so when you lean against it for reading it tips your head at a funny, not very comfotable angle. Result is I snuggle down to read and invariably fall asleep after about a page |
Yeah, we had bars on the last one which were too far apart and really narrow, very uncomfortable.
This uses 3"X3" timber and the headboard feels very flat to learn against, brilliant with a pillow there.
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Frewen Feltmaker
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Lovely looking bed 
Ours is a victorian bedstead and the rails are just a little too far apart which make it uncomfortable to read in.
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Bazil
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| Frewen wrote: | | Lovely looking bed |
Nothing fancy, it was meant to carry on up to 7 foot high at the headboard with a similar pattern and the legs at the footboard went up to 7 foot without any more pattern and then there was two side runners at the top but the bottom end was meant to be open ended.
Because most of that was made it kind of dictated what this would look like.
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Frewen Feltmaker
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Well I think it looks really nice
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2steps
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I really like that. well done
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marigold
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Very nice .
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Bazil
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Thanks for the comments!
Remember, if anyone wants any more information about sizes or construction details, just ask. This bed is pretty simple to make and it is possible to build the majority of the bed with reclaimed timber from your own property.
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gil
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Nice work.
I must sort out my bedframe - metal sides (old stylee Vono-type), with extra metal (Dexion) central and side to side bracing, with wooden ends. Metal supports a pair of pallets with a mattress on.
But even with all the bolts tightened up, it don't half squeak when you move about.
A project for the new year.
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Nanny
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it does look very nice indeed
almost a bit habitat in design.............but much better made
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Cathryn
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Bet it smells good as well. I have a friend who made one from cedar, it kept the delicious smell for ages.
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Bazil
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| ruby wrote: | | Bet it smells good as well. I have a friend who made one from cedar, it kept the delicious smell for ages. |
Thanks everyone for the comments again.
I imagine the smell will be stronger when I sand it down a bit more. It was only cheap softwood so it isnt that strong a smell. The pine in the base smells beautiful when its cut but you cannot smell that now 
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Nick
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Presumably, the smell will come back if you cut it again? What an excuse for notches on your bedstead!
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vanessa
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A lovely-looking bed, but constructive criticism point here ... hope you don't mind!
The brackets, whilst serving a purpose which is obvious, don't look pretty, and, if I was paying around the £1000-mark for a hand-made bed, I'd be pretty peeved if this is how it was strengthened.
So. How about more mortice and tenon joints? You could even make the lower cross-bar for the foot/head boards a bit deeper, so that the mortice for this can be lower than the mortice for the long side boards.
Just a thought.
With the mattress on, it looks FAB!!
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Bazil
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| vanessa wrote: | A lovely-looking bed, but constructive criticism point here ... hope you don't mind!
The brackets, whilst serving a purpose which is obvious, don't look pretty, and, if I was paying around the £1000-mark for a hand-made bed, I'd be pretty peeved if this is how it was strengthened.
So. How about more mortice and tenon joints? You could even make the lower cross-bar for the foot/head boards a bit deeper, so that the mortice for this can be lower than the mortice for the long side boards.
Just a thought.
With the mattress on, it looks FAB!! |
There are plenty of things that could be done, but you have to take into account the stability of the bed along with whether or not it is able to be dis-assembled.
I agree that the side runners could be morticed and tenon'd (sp?) and along with dowels and glue it would make a very strong and stable joint, but it would have to be assembled in the room and more than likely cut apart to dis-assemble it.
As I have already said, the pictures do not do it justice and the brackets look a lot nicer than on the picture, they are a hammered copper finish and look pretty good, plus they were made to go with the original design which was with a very dark stained wood finish, but this bed was made and finished in a day because the current bed was too uncomfortable.
The £1000 price tag I mentioned would be for a bed custom made to the clients specifications, so if they don't like certain things, they do not have to have them. I doubt any bed you buy will have an aesthetically pleasing base.
The fact that I am a big 6'5" builder and I can push and pull the headboard as much as I can (which I did to test) and the bed doesn't move an inch or creak is more important to me than a bracket on the bed base that is underneath a mattress.
Thanks for the comments
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Fee
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Oooh, looks nice, will show Mr Fee this tonight, he's been talking about building a bed for ages because we keep breaking them  
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vanessa
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You're right, Bazil, the bracket doesn't come out right in the photo. It looks like a standard base-metal angle-bracket ... and agree that in a copper finish it would look altogether different.
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Slim
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| Fee wrote: | | Oooh, looks nice, will show Mr Fee this tonight, he's been talking about building a bed for ages because we keep breaking them |
Oh deary me....
Congratulations to any of you who have made a bed or will be. Dang, I'm jealous!
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Marionb
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| Fee wrote: | | Oooh, looks nice, will show Mr Fee this tonight, he's been talking about building a bed for ages because we keep breaking them |
Too much information....
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Bazil
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| Marionb wrote: | | Fee wrote: | | Oooh, looks nice, will show Mr Fee this tonight, he's been talking about building a bed for ages because we keep breaking them |
Too much information.... |
Its a funny subject, I have had a few strange looks when I have told people that I have given it a good testing by hanging on to the headboard and giving it a good shaking.
Some friends of ours came round last night and over a few glasses of their home-made parsnip wine I mentioned my bed and James asked if I would consider building it for him if he supplied all the materials and he would dig our garden in exchange. Not sure about the digging, but I am sure I can think of something in loo of payment, great currency for a downsizer IMO!.
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