Chris' Web Site:
Home Page

Send email to: Chris

Canopy Bed (2011)

Our oldest daughter has been sleeping on a mattress and box spring on the floor, and I'm overdue for making her a "real bed". This was finally finished and delivered on her 7th birthday.

The bed matches the other furniture I previously made for her room (double dresser, framed mirror, bedside tables, & blanket chest), and it fits in nicely. The room is getting full but somehow I have to squeeze in a desk to match - but that will come probably over the coming summer after my younger daughter gets her canopy bed.

Like the rest of her furniture, the primary wood is soft maple and the secondary wood is soft wormy maple (drawers were 5/4 stock resawn to 1/2" final thickness). The drawers are domino'd at all corners and the fronts are raised. The drawers run on full extension slides, and the drawer pulls match the others in her room. 4 big drawers on both sides of the bed give her tons of extra storage space (it's hard to believe she has enough junk to fill up everything already in her room plus 8 MORE drawers....).

The finish is 4 or 5 coats of sprayed water based polyurethane. We chose water poly to keep the soft maple as "white" as possible, and the final topcoat was satin to provide a pleasing but not overpowering sheen. Sanding between each coat and a final polish of the topcoat provided a glass-smooth surface that's very pleasing to touch.

It took me about 6 months to complete this since I now get only an hour or two per week in the shop, but seeing this face made it all worth it:

She picked a great day to come home from school eating a green apple blowpop.....

I think she likes it!!