Tuesday, August 1, 2017

How To Make A Farmhouse Bed

*this post contains affiliate links...

Our youngest daughter moved into her own apartment in June and asked Mr. DIY to make her a Queen size Farmhouse bed.
He stopped everything and got right on it. 
This bed requires a moderate level of skill to make and not for beginners.
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This Farmhouse bed is a platform bed, which means you only need a mattress and don't need a box spring. We also built this bed higher than usual because our daughter wanted to store containers underneath.


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Here's how we made our queen Farmhouse bed:

To make the legs:
Stack 3 pieces of 1 x 4 for the legs.The front board is 1" x 4" x 12". The two longer boards in the back are 1" x 4" x 15 3/4".
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Glue and nail the pieces together.
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Oops, he nailed the front of the leg, instead of the back, by mistake. Easily filled with wood putty.
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I wanted a curve, instead of a straight leg, so we made a cardboard template and cut the leg accordingly.
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Make the footboard
Here, the leg was attached to the foot board, which consisted of 2 pieces. 
The front piece you see is  1" x 6" x 61 1/2".
The back piece of the footboard is a 1" x 4" x 52 7/8" 
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(this pic was taken after painting) You can see here that the cleat behind the foot board rail  and is raised 1/4" from the bottom (which leave 1 3/4" from the top). This allows the mattress to sit 1" down in the rail once a piece of 3/4"  plywood is placed inside the frame. (you'll see this later)
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Make the side rails
The side rails are made in the same fashion, with a 1 x 6 and a 1 x 4 cleat, but are cut to 80" (measure your mattress and make the side rails to fit accordingly)



The Headboard

Make the channels that the center boards of the headboard fit in
A 1 x 3  is ripped to 2 3/8" wide (front piece). The back piece is a 1 x 4 and the end piece is  a 1 x 3. All three of these pieces are cut to 55" in length.  The front and back pieces are attached with pocket screws made with a Kreg Jig. The spacing was determined by the boards that will fit between them.
This photo below shows one of the channels that the boards will set into.
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Insert planks into the channels
9 of these planks from Lowe's were used for the center part of the headboard and fit between the channels. They are cut to 61 1/2"
Insert planks in one of the channels. Planks will be vertical inside the horizontal channel, which will be on the ground.
Place the other channel on the planks - use a mallet or hammer and block.


Here's a photo of the left channel with the planks in place.  The planks are beadboard on the back of the headboard, but we liked the wider side, so that's what we used for the front.
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2 pennies were used for spacing  between boards.
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Use blue tape to hold the pennies in place until the boards are screwed together. There are 9 plank boards cut to 61 1/2".
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Screw the channels to the boards
This is the back of the headboard. (notice the beadboard). 
1 screw was used per board.
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Here's the headboard with all the boards in place, but without the top of the frame and the top cap. 
To make sure the headboard is perfectly square, measure it diagonally in both directions and make sure the measurements are the same.
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Add the top frame of the headboard
The top frame of the headboard at the top of the boards matches the side pieces (the 2 arrows point to this piece). The front board is a 1 x 3 ripped to 2 3/8, the back piece is a 1 x 4 and both are cut to 56 5/8" in length. 

Add the top cap
The top cap (black arrow pointing to it) is a 1 x 4 ripped to 3 1/4", cut 63 3/4" long. These front and back boards were glued and nailed from the back. The top cap was glued and nailed from the top.
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Add the cleat for the head of the bed (on the headboard)
On the bottom part of the headboard, there is a matching rail made of a 1 x 6 and a 1 x 4 sandwiched together in the same fashion as the side rails and was cut to fit the space.

Assemble the bed  The side rails and foot board are attached to the headboard with brackets/no-mortise bed rail fittings
 purchased from Amazon. 2 1/2 sets are needed for the side rails and foot rails. You'll need more depending on how many cross rail supports you decide to use. 


No-Mortise Bed Rail Fittings- (note that the pic shows the brackets upside down- they should be installed the opposite way so the large part of the hole is at the top)




After the bed is assembled, the rails extended past the leg, so a filler was added to the leg. (see pic above) Here the filler is dry fitted to see how it looked. The piece is a 1x 3 ripped to 2 1/4" x 12" long.
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Add the cross rail supports
Since there are no center legs,  three 1 x 4 cross rail supports were cut to length and attached with the same brackets.
Brackets were used so the bed can be taken apart and moved,
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Add the platform support
Two 4 x 8 sheets of plywood were cut down to 30" x 80". 
A 1" hole was drilled in the foot, so that they could be easily placed and lifted out. The bed took Mr. DIY about 4 days to make.
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If you have any questions for Mr. DIY, let us know in the comments. Be sure to leave your email, so we can respond directly to you.

UPDATE: you can see the finished bed HERE

Pam

The above links to amazon.com are affiliate links and I'll make a small commission should you purchase something through these links.



Disclaimer: The above post is how we made our farmhouse bed.  We don't take any responsibility for any errors or results obtained from using this information. When using power tools, use safety equipment.

8 comments:

  1. That's amazing! You guys did a wonderful job on it- love the design! I bed your daughter loves it a lot. Can't wait to see it finished!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow--truly amazing!! People would pay a lot of money for a wonderful bed like that; she's a lucky girl :) Thanks so much for the visit to my blog today and the sweet comment--

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do you have measurements to make it a full size

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kelli, we made our farmhouse bed for a Queen, which is 60 wide by 80 long. A standard Full mattress is 53" x 75". It's always best to measure your mattress and adjust accordingly.

      Delete
  4. Love it! This will go in my, DIY want to build file.I have big ideas, but do not have all of the tools, or the room! Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  5. What size was your plywood in the middle? 3/8", 1/2"? Thanks

    ReplyDelete

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