Birth of 'The Bed': How a Wild Idea Becomes a Reality

Mahogany, with Walnut accents, natural finish

This bed took 30 years to design. Well, sort of. Since marrying in the '80s, I had always resisted the idea of buying our bedroom set at a furniture store. I would list many reasons (my lovely wife calls them "lame excuses"), but it all boiled down to wanting something unique to us. Plus, I knew that I could put far better quality into my products than any retail store could. After converting our garage into a woodworker's shop, I... we... okay...Shelly decided it was time to start designing the bed!

This is where my approach to furniture design started to evolve. Until this project, most of my woodworking projects were some form of cabinet design modified into the piece of furniture desired. They usually ended up looking a little 'boxy'. I guess that makes sense, when you consider that starting with a box can seriously limit your end product's potential. Instead, we sat down with a blank sheet of paper and just started throwing ideas down! I have to admit right now that most of the great ideas came from Shelly. I was still thinking inside the 'box'. Having drawers for storage underneath was well within my grasp, and really cool soft-close guides were available. And we both agreed that matching the mahogany dresser I built 20 years ago was important. But then, she suggested moving our T.V. off of the dresser (whaaat?) and building it into the footboard. That was definitely going to change my 'cabinet-first' mentality, and a T.V. lift was the first design criteria to nail down. A quick search of the internet led me to 3 truths:

1. The market for T.V. lifts in wood furniture is quite "blah".

2. They all made a T.V. pop up, but looked very 'boxy' (there's that word again) in the DOWN position. This needed to be a streamlined design that would be beautiful on it's own merit, T.V. or not.

3. I knew I could do much better.

My first step in the design was a very simple (crude, even) sketch of the footboard. It would need posts on the ends and a center box to hold a T.V. that didn't look boxy. After viewing thousands of images online, I combined several cool details into my drawing, keeping in mind that I should avoid right angles as much as possible. The headboard would be easier, so I set that aside until later.

I would like to say the next step was to flesh out all the minor details on CAD, but that's not the way it went down. Instead, I relied on an old lesson I learned in the kitchen cabinet industry. When we were building a cabinet with lots of separate details that might conflict with each other, we would draw a full-scale top view on a piece of plywood. It is much easier to fit things like hinges and drawer guides when you can hold them right up to the full-sized plan. You can also plan how your joinery will fit together, and where you might have to add or remove parts to work with other pieces. For me, it's like building the project in my mind while I'm laying it out. For this project, I also did a full-sized front view, to get all the angles and tapered trim pieces to look right. When it came time to start 'making sawdust', I would measure the angles and dimensions directly from the layout sheets, cut the parts, and match them up.

The drawers underneath were very straightforward, so I only had to decide on overall dimensions. I didn't even bother to draw any of that out. I did opt to make both sides separately, for two reasons. One, I have spent enough decades hauling huge cabinets up stairs and around tight corners. There is nothing worse than building a mastepiece that has to sit in the hallway while you figure out how to cut it in half! Secondly, two drawer units could be held shallow to create a space down the middle for electrical equipment for the T.V.

I built and finished the drawer base and footboard before I even started laying out the headboard. I needed to be sure the T.V. lift part was going to work out. After I was convinced it was what we wanted, I drew it on CAD. Seems backwards, I know, but I'm much more competent with tablesaws, sanders, and hand tools than I am with CAD. I am attempting to teach myself CAD by drawing already finished projects. What a cad!

Last, I drew out the headboard, again in full-scale. Because the footboard was already done, I only had to use the same dimensions and angles to create a matching piece. I made it taller so that it looked 'right', and added a hidden switch in one of the trim pieces. That has been a huge hit, especially with our granddaughters. Nothing wakes up the inner child like T.V.s popping out of beds while little ones jump up and down on the bed and giggle.