This is a queen sized bed and two side tables. The primary wood is walnut, and the drawer fronts are birds-eye maple. The head board and foot board are each a single board, with the head board about 22 inches wide and the foot board about 16 inches wide. The tops of the bed side tables were cut from the ends of the head board. Both head board and foot board have a natural bend that I placed in the center. Both also were cut through the center of the tree, extending from sap wood on one side to sap wood on the other side. On the ends of the boards you can see the tree rings get smaller and smaller towards the center of the board until they are just little circles at the tree's pith. These boards were left over from a veneer mill and sat around for decades before they found their way to a local wood working store. The bed rails are also walnut.


 

The design is rather simple. Sort of Hippy-Shaker! Mostly I just let the wood dictate the look. The construction is also simple. The head board and foot board are attached to the legs with dowels. The legs are simple straight lengths of walnut with rounded edges and simple feet. The side tables are jointed with biscuits. The only thing "fancy" are the drawers with birds-eye maple assembled with hand cut half-blind dovetail in the front and through dovetails in the back. These were my first hand cut dovetails, and while not perfect, are pretty good.
 
 
 


 

Here is the foot board, made from a single board. You can see the lighter sap wood at the edges. The shape comes straight from the tree. There is also a bit of curl and a nice shimmer to the wood.
 
 

The head board is similar to the foot board and includes some nice color and high lights, and the includes of some knots. The wood is really quite beautiful, but of course is largely hidden behind pillows! Half the pillows we normally use are removed in the top picture.
 
 
 


 

The side tables are also rather simple in design, with a definite Shaker influence. I never did figure out what kind of pulls to use on the drawers. Fortunately, there is a lip under the bottom edge so they are easy to open without pulls.




 


 

Here is a better view of the table top, again with the wood extending from sap wood on one side to sap wood on the other. You often read that you can not use such wide boards because they are unstable. However, I had the top to this side table just sitting on top, unattached in any way for some five years and it never warped a bit. Finally, after one last time of Deb grabbing hold of the top to move the table, and having the top come flying off, I got orders to finish construction. And I did!
 




No stain was used. The finish is Waterlox Transparent (a polymerized tung oil product), wiped on in three coats. The Waterlox provides a very nice close to the wood finish with great color and clarity. The exception is the table tops which are poly for extra protection, wiped on and rubbed out with #0000 steel wool and mineral spirits. The table tops are perhaps the most flawless varnish finish I've ever managed. I finished it in the kitchen, but that was a premarriage luxury! Now I finish in my dusty shop.