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Night Stands 4

I finished the drawer and got them mounted in the night stand boxes.

I cut two drawer blanks from 4/4 Black Walnut.


And clamped them to the boxes with the drawers in stalled and clamped the blanks in place so I could mark the back sides to be cut.


I trimmed right up to the edge of the line with the finish blade in my bandsaw. And I sanded the edge just enough to get the pencil line to disappear.


I then saned the entire blank down to 180 grit with my random orbit sander and checked the fit in the cabinet.

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Night Stands 2

Last night I got all the veneer on inside and out and sanding done. I was able to finishe up the night with a coat of tung oil for color. Above shows with and without oil. I oiledboth and let dry overnight.

Tonight I got to work on the polyurethane. I use this Varahane product that’s actually for floors. 


I used it on our floors and it give a great, super durable finish, has little to no odor and cleans up with soap and water. It dries in about 45 min so it’s easy to get several coats in 1 night.


It’s self leveling , so it can be brushed on and still dries smooth. I’ll hog it 3 coats and then sand smooth with 220 grit and then one more coat on top. I would normally do 3 coats, sand, 3 coats, sand, 3 coats, polish, however, my wife says that results in a look that’s like plastic. She’s right in that it would be glossy smooth with no grain texture. So I stop early in that process to leave a more wood-like look.

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Night Stands

With the basic bed in place in time for the mattress delivery, I’ve had some time to slack off. None the less, I started building the night stand portion of the bed. These are floating units that attach to the headboard with through bolts to anchor plates on the back. The box will be half filled with a drawer and then an open shelf on the bottom for chargers.


Above the sides of the boxes are cut from 3/4″ ply and have 1/2″ strips of black walnut glued to the face.


The strips hang over a bit on the sides and I used my router with edge trimming but to make them flush.

Sides trimmed, sander and ready for assembly. At this point I should have put the veneer on the inside. It proved to be kind of a pain later.


Glue and staple the sides while wiping off the glue as I go and checking for square.


Ready for Bondo and sanding.

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I Bondoed and sanded the back side too. I want it to sit flat against the headboard, no gaps. Veneer goes on with contact cement. I usually work at night, so I trim the edges with a razor blade to keep the noise down.


Press down hard with the edge of a 2×4 that’s lightly rounded. 


For inside the box, I had to carefully cut the veneer to just the right width. These shims let me position the veneer and I just slide them out to stick.



New veneer pieces cut for the outside rob and bottom. 

That’s as far as I got today. 

To be continued…

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Start of the build

We purchased a Sleep Number bed for Black Friday (absolutely hate it). This meant a new project, a bed frame. My wife is an absolute lover of all things Modern, black walnut and brass. I decided to try and incorporate all these and made a design sketch.


The original head board was just behind the bed, but Joey asked that it extend behind the night stands and that the night stands float on it. That made the total width just under 10ft. I found a 10ft long black walnut veneer at oakwoodveneer.com and they were able to ship it out the same day.

I built the headboard out of 3/4 sanded plywood with a 2×4 frame.


The plane was to inlay a 1″ wide brass strip between the edge and veneer so I put the veneer on before installing the edge. Above the assembled, bondoed and sanded head is stood upright. This allowed me to position the extra long piece of veneer by myself. Beachside of the angle that the board sits at it left a gap at the bottom for the bottom overhang. This was accidental, but it worked out well.


The headboard back up on the saw horses. It was actually a bit longer than I needed (not sure how that happened), so I trimmed the end to give me a 7/8″ spacing between the 3/4″ wide walnut edge and the veneer. After the edge strip was attached, I used a scrap piece of my brass and a razor blade to trim the veneer to the exact width. I then cut my brass strips and glued them in with PVA glue I had leftover from my piano restoration.


Headboard, footboard and sides laid out for test fitting. Note the 1″ width exposed wood on the headboard. This is where I would later put the brass inlay.


Bolted together in final position. I toe screwed the 2×4 stringers in place and then screwed down 3/4″ sanded ply on top for the deck. I drilled pass-through holes where the night stands will later attach.