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About a year and a half back, my spouse informed me that it was time for a new mattress. “Why?” I asked. There were no lumps. There were no valleys at the center of the bed. No rips. No tears. In fact, we were both sleeping fine.
Much to my surprise, I was told we needed new bedding because our mattress was 20 years old. That’s it. The mattress …¦…¦ was old. Heaven help our cats. Now at 16 years old, the boys only have four years until their magic number is up. And my number has come and gone more than twice.
I held off as long as I could, but time finally caught up with me. A new mattress and box spring arrived. It would be nice to simply switch out the new setup with the old, but my wife figured this would be a great time to upgrade in size as well , out went the queen and in came the king. Out, too, went our pencil-post bed frame.
I wasn’t too sad to change out the frame because the posts were an early experiment with glued-up materials. Each post showed a distinct bend if the canopy frame wasn’t in place. (Don’t join 8/4 stock with 4/4 stock, then cut a pencil-post design.)
I have the material at hand. I’m using 12/4 for the posts, 8/4 for my rails and 5/4 for the remaining parts of the headboard and footboard. The panels are 1/2″ cherry-veneer plywood.
I thought it would be interesting to build this project on the blog. I’m not sure how many entries there will be. Hey, I’m not sure if something new will happen on even a weekly basis. (One thing I’ve found since I’ve been on staff at Popular Woodworking magazine is a respect for woodworkers who have regular jobs. My production has greatly suffered from the days of old when I worked 60 hours per week building furniture.) But you get to keep track and watch my progress.
Shown at the top is a rendition of the headboard of our about-to-be-begun bed. I’ve posted a SketchUp file (click here to download) of the headboard if you care to take a look and offer criticism , and please, if you have any better ideas, let me hear them quickly. I have to get started as soon as possible. My customer is rather impatient sleeping on a mattress that’s resting on a steel frame.
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