2 New Bed Designs

This first bed was built for Soseh, a punk rocker in Silver Lake who shares a last name with a very notorious man. She asked me to build her a bed with a huge headboard and lots of knots and interesting grain pattern. I had dreamed up this design for the legs some time ago, and was waiting for an opportunity to put it to use, so I figured this was a good chance. I couldn't be happier with the way my leg design worked with the enormous headboard.
This second bed I built for my friend Josh, who recently accepted a senior pastor position at a church in New Mexico. Like Soseh, Josh gave me a lot of room- complete freedom in fact- to do what I wanted with the design. So I again used the leg design I had been sitting on and used a more typical headboard, but created some interest with the posts supporting it. I like that these posts echo the curve of the legs, bringing a certain cohesion to the design.

booster seat

This is another booster seat that I built for Oscar. Oscar is the son of Vanessa and James, a really cool couple in Silver Lake that bought a storage bed from me. It's the same design as the teak booster seat elsewhere on this blog, except way better. This is solid walnut, with mortise and tenon joinery, and a clear coat that really makes the wood pop. This one was difficult to hand over because it just kicks so much ass. One of these days, I'm going to build 10 of these at once and drive them around to different boutiques because like I said before, they could be the next big thing I think.

New Design

I finally finished building night stands for Jana and I, more than a year since I built the bed. I'm kind of glad I waited though, because this design is completely different from what I would have done a year ago. I think I was subconsciously inspired by James Krenov, since I've been reading "A Cabinetmakers Notebook," his seminal work on wood and all things zen. Since the cabinet was to sit 8 1/2 inches above the ground, I felt that the legs had to have a little more elegance, or interest anyway, since visually they comprise a big part of the piece. These softly curved legs is what I came up with.


I'm particularly happy with the pull on the drawers- it's gently indented on the top and bottom to give a nice grip for a thumb and forefinger. In the future I'll need to find a router bit that will do this shaping for me, but this time it came down to a chisel and a pipe wrapped in sandpaper and a lot of sweat and sore hands.

The wood has a lot of natural interest. I really like this knot on the top surface here.

I continued with my recent foray into mortise and tenon joinery with these- all joints are formed in this manner. I also took my first shot at dovetails on the drawers. I've got a few kinks to work out, but basically I'm really happy with the result.

I'm very pleased with the overall cohesion of the night stands and bed together.