The Bed Frame pt. 1

I have a particular way that I want things to look especially if I'm going to spend money on them. Having sold my old bed - a single - a couple years ago to the nice family across the street and after several disappointing trips to furniture stores in an attempt to find a bed frame that I liked, I was pretty much ready to give up on getting exactly what I wanted and settle for whatever I could find at IKEA.

Long story short while reading up on Chris and Sonja's slow renovation of their house in Seattle, I stumbled upon a short entry about turning a door into a head board and decided that since I couldn't find a bed frame I liked, I'd build one. Ambitious yes. My friend Christie informed me that I need to make sure it was sturdy - good point - but I'd helped my step-dad build the deck at the house and it was still standing some 8 years later.
The first job was measuring my friend's queen sized bed frame to get a rough idea of what I should be looking for and then it was off to the antique stores to find something suitable. I hit this place first and while they had a massive selection of doors and pieces I could use the door alone would cost almost as much as a full frame from Sweden. However while wandering through the upstairs loft, I came across this.

Old window shutters. At $25 a piece they were a bargain compared to the door. However, the four I chose were coated with thick layers of white paint with blue starting to show below that. Having spent last summer remodeling my dad's old house and recalling how "fun" it was to strip old paint, sand, polish and then stain, I snapped a few pictures and headed to Home Depot.

And came up with this. Hemlock, cut to order, free of paint, hidden knots and ready to be finished. I ended up with more than I needed for less than $50 dollars. For some added character I made a strictly aesthetic choice and bought pieces of varying width to match the rustic look of the shutters found in Aurora.

The next task was measuring out the pieces and marking them for the saw. The head board - the first picture - will be made of four "window shutters" spaced about 3 inches apart for a grand total length of 64 inches and stand about 28 inches tall. Tomorrow I should be able to get the pieces cut down to size and then start assembling them.