How to Build a Mid Century Modern Bed--From Plywood!

hey guys it's sheryl from wichop diaries and today i'm going to be bringing you the fourth and final part of the mid century modern matching bedroom set series so if you've seen the rest of the series you know that we've already built a six drawer dresser some matching nightstands and a really cool dresser console with stencil doors so in this video i'm sharing the final piece of the puzzle the matching bit now while this project is fairly large in size it's a pretty simple build and just like the rest of the pieces in the matching set i made the entire thing almost all from plywood so if you guys are ready let's wrap up this series and get building i built this particular bed as a queen size for my parents guest bedroom but i've got the plans details and dimensions for a full queen and a king size at the link in the description if you'd like to build your own i've also linked all the plans and videos for the matching pieces in this series below as well if you want to check those out just like with all the other pieces in this series i used maple plywood for the vast majority of this build so i started out by cutting down my plywood sheets i used a circular saw and a kreg rip cut to rip the first sheet down into two nine and a quarter inch strips that will become the side rails later i set these aside for now then i adjusted my rip cut and ripped the remaining sheet into several five inch wide strips these strips will be used throughout the rest of the project for all of the specifics i have a plywood cut diagram for all of the sheets with all the cut dimensions in the plans linked below this bed is basically built in four parts the headboard the footboard the side rails and the slats since the headboard was the biggest piece i started with it first i trimmed down some pieces of those five inch wide plywood strips to assemble a frame the size i wanted my headboard to be i assembled this basic frame using pocket holes and screws then i pulled out another plywood sheet and cut a piece off the same size as this frame now you'll see in a minute that this was actually supposed to be three quarter inches shorter than the frame and i have noted this correctly in the plans so that you don't make the same mistake here you'll see what i'm talking about here in a minute once that was cut i glued and screwed this frame onto the back side of the plywood panel this frame isn't totally necessary but it does add a little strength and makes the back panel a little more rigid and it also allows me to use longer screws to secure the brackets later i was still brainstorming exactly how i wanted to attach the legs so while i was pondering i went ahead and just cut them out now if you've seen the other pieces in this series this leg design probably looks pretty familiar i used this exact same template to draw identical legs as what i used on the nightstands and the dressers previously now just like with the other projects i used some poplar here for these legs however it was full one inch thick poplar and not your regular one by material so it was a little thicker i think these will hold just fine for this guest bed but if you're hesitant i would recommend going with two by or one and a half inch thick material for the legs just for a little extra strength at the corners i probably wouldn't use three quarter inch thick material for this application now you can secure these a million ways but i finally came up with an idea that i thought would work pretty well i used some of the five inch wide plywood leftover from making the headboard frame earlier and cut them at a 45 degree angle so that the leg would fit across the diagonal i cut four of these one for each leg then i glued and screwed these legs onto these pieces using two and a half inch wood screws but then i had to attach them to the headboard so change of plans um i cut this headboard piece to be the same size as the back frame but i actually need there to be about a three quarter inch piece cut off right along here i need this brace to sit flush with this um back frame here i didn't really have a good plan for how to attach the legs when i started this project and now i think i have a better idea and so we're going to fix that so i marked three quarter inch from the bottom edge and used a circular saw to remove this piece again this was a mistake so hopefully you shouldn't have to actually do this part yourself once this piece was removed i glued and screwed two of these legs onto the headboard using four two inch wood screws two at the back and two through the bottom i attached these so that they were three quarter inch in from the outside edges so that the side rails can fit beside them later now there are other ways to add these feet and you're welcome to use your own method but once i had this bed assembled i tested them by jumping on each corner as hard as i could and they didn't budge at all so i think this will work fine for me the weight will be distributed quite a bit at the end of the day so there really shouldn't be a lot of concentrated stress on them individually anyway once the headboard was together i moved it out of the way and began assembling the footboard while i show you how the footboard came together i would like to take a moment to introduce you to our video sponsor skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creators on topics like illustration design photography video freelancing and more it's curated specifically for learning so there are no ads and they're always launching new premium classes so they never run out of learning opportunities as a small business owner and video content creator i'm personally really interested in learning more about design photography and video editing since joining skillshare i started taking advanced video editing with adobe premiere pro 2020 taught by jordy vandeput it's been a really helpful class and has taught me more efficient ways to organize and edit my video footage that i wasn't even aware of before if you're interested in seeing what skillshare has to offer the first 1 000 of my subscribers to click the link in the description will get a one month free trial of skillshare so that you can explore your own creativity now let's get back to the build the footboard was just a solid panel like the headboard but without the frame so i cut down a piece of plywood to use as the footboard from another plywood sheet then i cut a piece of five inch wide plywood to run across the back side this plywood strip will just help keep this piece more rigid but also allow me to use longer screws with the brackets that i'll install later i cut this back piece so that it would be about an inch and a half narrower than the footboard panel to leave an extra three quarter inch base on each side i glued and screwed this in place three quarter inch up from the bottom edge and three quarter inch in from each side then i installed the little foot pieces just like with the headboard using glue and two screws through the bottom and two screws through the footboard with the head and foot boards together i pulled out those nine and a quarter inch wide plywood strips that i cut at the beginning and trim them to length on the miter saw to make the side rails each side rail consisted of one nine and a quarter inch strip and one five inch strip of three quarter inch plywood after i cut them to length i glued the five inch strip to the side rail three quarter inch up from the bottom edge in addition to the glue i also added some screws up and down the length of these side rails now because i don't like exposed plywood edges i did edgeman the top of these side rails but that's totally optional if you're interested in how to apply edge banding i'll link a detailed guide below so another change of plans i actually made this so that the um like actual side rail and the side rail support are the same length so they should be flush on the edge and that will work for the headboard side but for the footboard side i actually need to cut off three-quarter of an inch and i'll show you a close-up as to why in a second but right now i'm going to come across and cut this off now i will make note of this in the plans and correct this but i wasn't thinking again at the time that i attached these that this needs to be slightly shorter than this the footboard end of the support needed to be three-quarter inch shorter than the actual side rail in order to fit over the footboard support piece now you'll see what i mean here as i assemble all the pieces together you can see how the side rails kind of wrap around the footboard supports at the corners okay so i've got the bed [Music] like it's just resting on if you can see so the side rails i've got resting on the piece of the footboard now you can see what i mean here as i assemble all the pieces together you can see how the side rails kind of wrap around the footboard support at the corners joints aren't super tight i'm going to pull them tight as i attach these brackets okay so basically these brackets you've got a part that's got teeth and then part that's got like these little slots so the teeth will sit down in the slots and connect the side rail and the headboard and footboard together so in this case this mounts on the side rails and this will mount on the headboard so i'm just gonna like put these together and then put them here in this corner so i know where to attach them i found it easiest to kind of just dry fit the four sides of the bed together like this and attach the brackets at the corners i used one and a quarter inch long screws in all of the holes in the brackets and once installed i test fit each corner just to make sure that it would come apart and go back together smoothly they make many types of brackets for this but i've used these several times in the past and they work really well and are fairly inexpensive i will link the ones that i used here below [Music] once the brackets were installed i used wet plywood that i had left to rip some strips to use as the slats this design allows you to skip a box spring by using slats but these also need to be supported in the middle now i've seen some people use like a two by four running from the head to the foot board and you could do that i'm sure but i prefer to just add some two by two pieces in the center from the slats to the ground but that's just my own personal preference so i marked the center of each slat and screwed a 2 by 2 in at that point the final part of this bed was adding some trim around the edges just to give the bed a little extra dimension and detail i used some scrap plywood strips cut them to fit and edge banded the edges that will be exposed then i glued and nailed them along the edges of the footboard and the headboard i used two inch wide pieces around the headboard and one and a half inch wide pieces around the footboard but you could play around with the thickness of your trim pieces to suit your own style the bottom piece of this footboard was just basically a three-quarter inch square plywood dowel and i nailed it across the front instead of along the bottom so that it would cover the screws from attaching the feet pieces i gave these pieces a few coats of clear poly and then i brought it inside to assemble it for use so now that the bed is together um this triangle piece that we added the leg onto it's not secured to the side panel it's only secured to the foot board and the headboard so for extra security i'm just gonna shoot a screw up in every corner so that it will attach these triangle pieces to the side board as well after securing the feet to the side rails i evenly spaced out the slats on the side rails and screwed them in place then i threw on the mattress the sheets the comforter the pillows the blankets and all the things that make a bed look pretty and then took a break to recover from this build all in all this bed was a fairly straightforward build and is simple enough to work with any style if you want to mix and match furniture but i have to admit it looks pretty good with these matching nightstands here if you want to grab the plans with all the details for this or any of the other pieces in the matching series be sure to head to the description for all the links i hope you guys enjoyed this series and this build and if you can't wait to see what's next i'd love if you'd subscribe so you don't miss out on all the latest videos thanks so much for watching friends and until next time happy building

Channel: Shara Woodshop Diaries

Views: 29,997

Rating: 4.9519682 out of 5

Keywords: mid century modern furniture, mid century modern furniture build, mid century modern furniture building plans, mid century modern bed frame, mid century modern bed frame diy, mid century modern bedroom, diy plywood furniture, how to build plywood furniture, how to build bed frame, how to build modern bed frame, diy bed frame using plywood, plywood bed frame diy, how to build a bed out of wood, DIY wood bed frame, mid century modern woodworking plans, mid century modern bed

Id: MWiJGuuRkqo

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021