A wooden bed for a doll

One of the most beautiful projects of 2013. A friend asked if I could build a bed for his daughter’s doll, which she was about to receive as a two-year birthday gift. He showed me some examples at www.ana-white.com, so I caught the idea and went a bit further.

I. Design and planning

Since I knew the dimensions of „the Client” (The Doll), i had to make the bed for it to fit properly, not to big, not to small.

Then an Sketchup drawing followed: After the main design is complete, I „broke apart” a copy of the model and measure every single part and write down the part list. There are some plugins the can do the job for you, but I had to do all the math manually.

The thick legs will be made by glueing three boards together.

Part list:

After the modeling was done and the Part list prepared, I had to use a free Optimalon web-software, to calculate the optimal cutting scheme, so i waste less wood.

Generally it works pretty simple: You start with the list of materials you have (in my case – wooden boards of 800×600 mm in size), then you define cutting settings (my saw cuts 3 mm), then type in the parts you need and, voila, you get a set of drawings that show you how to cut the boards to get all the parts you need.

II. Fabrication

Having the cutting plans and all the materials ready, put the safety gear (glasses, gloves, etc.) on and start cutting. Since the parts are relatively small, so I did the diagonal cuts on the table saw, and the cross cuts on my big mitre saw.

After the cutting is done, I started glueing the legs using standard wood glue, a brush and a bunch of clamps. Left the legs to dry overnight. Then i cut it to length the next day.

Using my router table I did all the „artwork” – routed the top planks of the headboard and the footboard, routed the grooves in the rails and legs.

And, finally, the first assembly. The front ornaments on the headboard and the foot board were made by a CNC router, but they could also be made by hand easily. All the joints are 8 mm dowel joints made using Wolfcraft dowel master.

Since the test assembly turned out to be fine, the finishing had to follow.

Firstly, i applied wood sealant where needed to remove wood imperfections. It dried in no time and i could sand the excess quickly.

Then, after a half an hour or so of sanding every part with 120 grit sandpaper and 220 grit sandsponge, first coat of primer was applied and everything left to dry. For a primer i use just wood glue dissolved in water. Works fine.

The first coat of honey – coloured acrylic paint was appiled. Then two coats of white acrylic paint followed. Then, using 120 grit sandpaper I sanded every part until the honey-brown background started to flash from behind at the edges so the whole thing got that a-la French-rustic look.