Farmhouse bed build

Several months ago my wife introduced me to Ana White's blog page.  She has hundreds of plans for furniture made from basic home store wood.  I love to tinker and build and many of the plans were right up my alley.  I first noticed that her version of a farmhouse bed was very popular and very easy to make.  I decided initially to just make a headboard, then attach it to the metal frame we already had.  After making the headboard and setting it place for a few days, I realized that I really wanted to build the entire bed.  Over the last few months I have worked on this king sized bed, and now it is finished.



The bed is made from construction grade lumber.  Mine came from Menards.  I used select grade 1x4's, 1x8's, and 1x2's along with standard 2x4, 2x6 and 4x4's for the posts.  All wood is UNtreated.

I used my compound miter saw to the cut most of the parts to length.  I had to use the circular saw and a guide to make the cuts on the 2x6 and 1x8.  The blade on the miter saw is too small to cut through these wider pieces.  Ana provides a cut list and sketchup pictures to aid in the construction.  However, in this case I had to change a few of the dimensions.  A king sized mattress measures 76" wide by 80" long.  Ana's plans were produced with the bed oriented the other way (80" wide by 76" long) because she likes the extra width of the bed.  A few simple calculations and I was in business.

Assembly calls for glue and brad nails on the headboard and footboard main panel.  To attach the legs to the headboard, I originally used six 5" lag screws driven into each side of the leg.  I hated the way it looked and didn't have the tools needed to counter sink the lag heads into the legs.  Because of this I changed my approach.  From the back of the panel, I used four 2.5" pocket hole screws per side, along with two 5" spax powerlags with a torx bit head.  I left the  heads on these exposed but the coloring and low profile do not bring too much attention.  The 2x4 and 2x6 headers were attached to the top using glue and trim screws.  The screws were countersunk and filled with wood putty to hide them.  For the rails of the bed I used standard 2x6 boards cut to length.  I initially decided on four pocket hole screws to hold each end of the rail to the post.  I didn't go this approach as I wanted to be able to break the bed down into pieces if we ever wanted to move it.  I bought some nice non mortise bed rail hardware from  Woodcraft.  The hardware was nice, but I needed to use a countersink bit to remove some material so that the #10 screws would lay flush with the surface.  If they stuck up at all, the hardware would not slide together.  This was easily done at the drill press with a #10 countersink bit.

The last step (besides finishing) was deciding on a slat system to support the box springs and mattress.  In the end, my desire to easily disassemble won out.  I  used 2x4 joist hangers to hold the 5 horizontal joists in place.  I cut a piece of scrap 2x4 and mounted in vertically to the center joist to create a center "leg".  This gives additional support to the very center of the bed, preventing any possible sagging.

After lots of grief and research on finishing pine, I decided to go with a very simple finish.  I sanded all parts of the bed with 60, 80, 120, and 220 grit sandpaper using a random orbital sander as well as by hand.  Pine does not take stain particularly well.  Instead of buying a pre-stain conditioner, I went with a suggestion by The Wood Whisperer to use Bullseye Sealcoat dewaxed shellac as a sealer before staining.  The shellac, when thinned out to a 1 pound cut and wiped on, would seal the pine as to stop blotching, but would allow some stain to get through.  I grabbed a gallon of the Sealcoat on sale at Lowe's for $26.  I could not figure out what color to stain the bed.  We have a few pieces that are a rich, red mahogany color but pine is almost impossible to make look that way.  As I pondered what to do, I started thinking back to our last vacation to the Wisconsin Dells.  We stayed in a cabin and most of the furniture was pine, along with the pine walls.  Everything was very light colored, with what appeared to just be a clear varnish.  Even though pine is a softwood and not prized by any means, I still enjoy seeing the woodgrain.  I had already wiped on a coat of shellac and it had given it a very light amber color and had popped the grain of the wood. I decided to just stick with the shellac.  I wiped on several more coats of the 2 lb cut dewaxed shellac and sanded with 220 between coats to smooth it out.  One really good thing about this is that it seals up any knots and sap from seeping out. The other is that it's virtually odorless once dry.  My test pieces of wipe on varnish stunk for many days.

In the end, this bed was fun for me to build.  As I slowly get into more woodworking projects, I find it very relaxing.  If your just getting started in woodworking, check out ana-white.com for some nice, simple projects.  If this whets your whistle, check out Marc Spagnuolo over at The Wood Whisperer.  Lots of good information given to you with some comedy and wit.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my bed building journey.  It was fun and now I'm off to work on some matching sidetables to match it!