I've been working on the design of this bed for quite some time with the help of my daughter. She was pretty excited to see that I started it. When it was done she said she never thought I'd finish, she knows me too well. Since we were moving up from a toddler bed I wanted something that would combine other pieces of furniture already in her room. This way we have a dresser and bookshelves and bed all in one. I saw some similar designs in a magazine long ago but the usually had a desk or a pullout mattress etc. I wanted something a bit more fun.
Making the arc jig for the headboard and footboard. I used a scrap piece of ply I had laying around, I marked the center line and on the ends I marked the height I wanted to be at. I then took another scrap of mdf (white piece) and brad nailed it center of the piece and then bent that scrap piece to the lines on the outside. This provides a place for the bearing to run on with my router. Then once I cut out the headboard, I modified the jig for the entry part of footboard and cut that out. You can see some of the scrap circles I have there for making different radiuses.
Getting my dado pretty close, I'll take it! I had to do the roundover one the long sides first and then trial and error until I got the end lined up. I used a mortising bit in my router with a fence and a stop block. I adjusted the block bit by bit until I got the two to line up.
Headboard cut down and test fit
Entry side cut out using the jig from earlier
Lining things up. It took a bit of clamping to get it square so I could drill my mounting for the top piece
Stair case assembled with final depth on tread. I used a 5mm straight cut bit in my plunge router and a jig I had made from a while ago for the shelf pins.
Staircase/bed end lined up. Putting this on and lining it up and then marking where everything is so I can cut out the shelf area without cutting anything important.
This wasn't too bad, what I did here was I attached the end after removing the excess with my jigsaw. I then put in 1/4" strips of wood on each side of the dividers for the bearing of my flush trim bit to ride on. After I finished routing, I removed the temporary strips and am left with a 1&1/4" divider between the sections with only having used one piece of 3/4". Much cheaper than double stacking the 3/4 and not as thick or heavy.
Closer peek. You can see a couple angle supports that hold the staircase. I used 1/4-20 furniture bolts because the head of the screw just looks nicer
Final Test assembly, we're good to start the final process of painting.
Routering the B using the template I made from a skinny Letter I found at the craft store, it was the size I wanted bit was only 1/8" thick. I basically screwed that to a 3/4" mdf piece and ran my bearing on it to create the mdf template. The template is on the top here and I'm basically copying it over to another 3/4" piece to make my final mdf B. The only reason I did this was to have a template handy in the future.
So this doesn't show the bit I used for smoothing it out, but I used a handrail style bit to roundover the B in a way that is different than a typical roundover bit. I just think it's kinda neat looking. The bit that is shown is the dado cleanout bit.
Most of the pieces primed
Painting stairs
Adjustable shelving for books etc, made good use of the stairs.
Leds on
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