bed part six.

Finishing (part two) and final construction ...

So it was time to finish this thing already. Let's see ... I started it about two months ago so yeah, time to finish. I just had to put on the last coats of varnish (I put on a total of three) and then I could start putting it all together.

I used a satin varnish from the same company that made the stain - making sure to pour the varnish I was using into a separate container as I worked cos it would get slightly contaminated with the stain and this kept the rest of the varnish in the can pristine -

Once it had a chance to dry, I glued the posts to the headboard and footboard using some clamps -

Then screwed in the pocket hole screws for good measure -

Those didn't really matter because the headboard and footboard construction is all just cosmetic - no structural anything about them. But whatever.

Then a couple days later I got to putting the whole thing together - it took maybe an hour or so and then it was done.

To attach the siderails I cut a 2x4 into two pieces each to the height of the base of the headboard and footboard off the floor (which were the same) and then drilled in the three pocket hole screws on each end. I am still impressed with how strong three pocket hole screws can be - I think I read somewhere on the Kreg site that the strength of a pocket hole joint is somewhere around 700 pounds! The self-tapping screws are sort of the secret and they apparently exert an enormous amount of clamping pressure (compared to about 450 pounds of a mortise and tenon joint). Yeah, with three screws per post this bed is absolutely rock solid.

The rather unfortunate thing was I was stupid for the last step and cut all the 2x4x10s I had gotten for the horizontal mattress supports too short. I had neglected to take into account that the siderails were indented (on purpose of course) out from the inside edge of the posts. I had cut them all to exactly 54-1/2" (the width of the headboard and footboard) not taking into account the 3/4" offset so they were all 1-1/2" too short. Oh well. It turned out OK cos I'll use those for the porch railings and when I went to Home Depot to get more lumber I found some awesome cedar 5/4x10' stuff so the bed now smells like cedar and they look much, much nicer than the 2x4s (and were only something like fifty cents more per 10' length) -

Two screws per board to add rigidity to a bed that - with the pocket hole screws and a lot of glue - was already rock solid but now even more so -

And that was that. I had gone to Sleep Country on Memorial Day to get a mattress and was reminded of how random mattress shopping is. Like in the fact that, well, I had gone to Sears first and thought I'd at least check out another place so headed over to Sleep Country (where I bought my mattress). After being almost attacked by a salesperson it became clear that all they really had in the full size were total crap mattresses that would probably fall apart in two years and then 'luxury' mattresses that didn't seem to really fit for a ten year old. But I eyed one that I really liked even though it was about two hundred dollars more than what I surmised was a comparable mattress at Sears. So I told the salesperson this and she nearly-instantly said she could not only match the price I spewed out with absolutely no proof (it was the truth of course) but that she could beat it by 5%. Sold! And it really is a nice mattress - my goal being that Julian will take it with him when he moves out (along with the bed) cos both will have stood the test of time. Well, that was the goal anyway.

Some organic sheets from Target (which are really actually super-soft and were cheap) and a quilt that I found at a random garage sale when I was back in Missouri a few weeks ago that Kathy was kind enough to mail rounded it all out. Then Julian had to try it out -

The next step is to totally super-duper clean his room (and take the quilt to the laundromat's ginormous washers) and then I'll try to take a real photo of it to post to the knockoffwood bragging wall.

Overall it turned out looking really pretty good. I learned a few things along the way that I'll put to good use in future (yes, future) woodworking projects which of course includes building my dream canopy king-size bed.