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Building a bed (from 2x4 lumber)

Under Bed
Storage
16 drawers
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I needed an extra bed in my old house for one of the tenants. Rather than buy something, I decided to just build
a bed out of construction lumber.

Building this bed turned out to be a one day project. I was also a little limited by the tools I had around, as I had
already moved many of the tools from my old workshop. So the only power tools I used in building this bed were
a table saw, a hand drill, a small power planer, and a belt sander.

I spent under $30 on materials, although I already had the screws and dowels. If I had bought everything, it
would still have been under $50.

I didn't actually use a single 2x4. Rather, I used spruce lumber normally used for framing. I used three 2x8's,
one 2x6, one 2x10, and two 2x2's. all 8' long.

The bed rails each have a 2x2 (1.5"x1.5") attached to


the bottom inside edge, on which the slats supporting
the mattress rest. The image at left is a cross section
of the bed illustrating this.
When using construction lumber to build furniture, its
necessary to carefully select the boards to use.
Fortunately, something like a bed frame is heavy
enough that a light twist in the lumber can be forced
straight when assembling it.

Although construction lumber comes planed, it is


typically not planed to a smoothness desired for
furniture projects. I had already moved my thickness
planer and jointer from my shop, so the next most
convenient thing to use was a power planer. The
power planer is about the size of a regular jack
plane, but it works more like a mini upside down 3"
wide jointer. The wider boards required three side by
side passes to plane. On some of the boards, I still
ended having some ridges between the passes,
which I sanded with a belt sander.

I also put a quarter inch chamfer on all the exposed


edges. The power planer infeed side has a 45
degree V notch in it, which allowed me to get a
consistent depth of chamfer whether I was putting it
on top of the factory rounded edge, or a fresh square
edge from a rip cut. I decided to make quarter inch
chamfers part of the overall styling of this project.

For chamfers in the end grain, I just cut them by


hand with a sharp knife.

The overall bed design consists of a headboard and


footboard of similar design, with the side rails
screwed onto the head and foot boards. The bed
posts are two 2x3's side by side, with a notch for
where the side rails screw in.

Putting some nice curves on the headboard like I did


with this one would have been better, but I already
removed my bandsaw from the old shop. So I had to
make do with some straight cuts instead.

The horizontal members of the head and foot board


are joined to the posts with 5/8" dowels. The dowel
joints are drilled and glued through just one of the
2x3's of the post. To drill the holes, I securely jig up
the horizontal board with the piece of the post, and
drill through both pieces. That way, I can ensure the
holes line up between the two parts, even if I only
freehand drill them with a hand drill. I'd used that
same approach when building a workbench

The diagram at left shows how everything is jigged


up for the drilling.

The widest board that I was using for the head board
was actually cupped a little bit, but jigging it up for
drilling also forced it flat while clamped. After drilling
the holes, I just glued the dowels in place with the
clamps still in, so now the dowels hold it flat.

After gluing and hammering the dowels in, I found I


had a slight gap between the horizontal boards of the
headboard and the post.

I didn't have any clamps long enough to span the


width of the bed, so clamped two pieces of wood to
the horizontal board, and used those to pull the joint
together.

This does require that the bottom two clamps in the


photo are tightened quite hard. I recommend you
don't attempt to do this with anything other than all
metal clamps that are tightened with a screw.

If all this seems too much trouble to you, another


approach would be to use some 4" long wood screws
instead of dowels. Not quite as sturdy, but sturdy
enough, and the gaps close just by tightening the
screws.
After gluing the head board and foot board together, I
took one pass over the half post with the power
planer to flatten the outside surface. I then
proceeded to glue the other 2x3 onto the post.

This part is a bit tricky, because with lots of glue in


the joint, it will try to 'float' to the side as clamps are
applied. The one clamp in the photo that is in a
vertical position was to hold that piece aligned better.

I still ended up having the parts misaligned by about


a millimeter. I just planed a millimeter or two off the
sides of the post to smooth it out afterwards. I cut the
bevels onto the post last. For bevels on the inside
side (next to the hadboard), I couldn't get the power planer into the corner, so cut those with a hand plane.

The bed side rails consist of 2x8 x 8' pieces of


lumber, cut to 80" in length and 7" in width. A 2x2
(1.5"x1.5") is screwed and glued to the bottom edge.
A small block is then glued every 6" to keep the slats
from sliding around.

Finally, the side rails are screwed into the gaps left
on the post. I used six 2.5" #8 screws. In retrospect,
#10 screws would have been slightly better, but the
#8 screws was what I had lying around.

And finally, the bed frame all


assembled. For the slats, I used
recycled lumber. Ironically, the slats
are salvaged from an old box spring
that I had dismantled at some point.

I'm no big fan of box springs. Its much


better to have the mattress elevated on
slats instead, so that there is lots of
room under the bed for storing stuff.

Besides, this gives more room for the


Calvin and Hobbes-esque monsters to
hide under the bed.

I am rather satisfied with how little time it took to build this bed, and how solid the whole thing ended up.

With the very solid looks of it, it just screams "build a king size bed like this". Which I may still at some point. I
think the proportions would work well.

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Related pages on my website:

Building a daybed

Bed plans For this style of bed, in different sizes

Building a queen size bed (much fancier style)

Building a bed frame

Under bed storage drawers

To Woodworking main index, or Woodwork projects page.

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