Day-Bed for Grand-Daughter
(Finished 07/09/2022)

My Daughter started looking at getting my Grand-Daughter a "Day-Bed". This is a bed with rails (I call them Jail Rails) that go all around the bed except for a 30"-36" opening on one side. This will allow my Grand-Daughter to get out of the bed when she wants, and prevents her from falling out of the bed in the middle of the night by accident. The different versions that were available to buy were disgusting in terms of cost and quality, plus they didn't have a design that would maximize the bed's functionality. So, I designed and built this Day-Bed for my Grand-Daughter, which was a perfect balance of form and function. It took me about
4-5 months, but that was becuase I could only work on it for 1-3 hours a day.

The Drawings for the Day-Bed


Picking the lumber is always important. I focus on quality of lumber and the grain, in this case it was made of Birch.


Building the Face Frame
My Grand-Daughter wanted to help as much as she could whenever she was around.


The next step was to attached the Face Frame to the base



Construction of the base with drawer dividers


Installation of the first leg. The legs had to be removable in order to move the bed into the bedroom.


Make the individual "Jails Rails" took a long time. There were 51 Jail Rails and each one had 26 different operations.



Along with 51 Jail Rails there had to 102 mortise joints drilled.

Drilling a few of the 102 mortises



One of the four Jail Rail glue-ups


All four Jail Rails assembled, sanded and ready for finishing



A common mistake by cabinet makers is to NOT square up the drawers during assemble. Doing this will make the drawers fit much better in the final assemble of the Day-Bed.


Drawers installed
(The drawer with blue tape is a little smaller than the other two drawers. - OPPS)



Dry fit everything to make sure it fits correctly.

Dry Fit Movie



Finish sanding



Final coat of finish



Installed and bed made!!!


Happy Grand-Daughter



Bed Fully Decorated



The Plug
On each piece of furniture that I build I add a non-functional Brailian Rosewood plug. My Daughter now calls this the "Kiss of Papa"

 

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