Oak Trundle Bed

This bed has been a long time in the making. And I guess, technically, it isn't yet complete. I still have to complete the slide out trundle to complete the entire thing. But, at least my niece is able to enjoy the bed now, as you can see in the first picture.

The bed is made from reclaimed oak flooring from a local home remodel. I've had the wood for a while, but just hadn't been able to use it up very quickly. This project definitely put a big dent in the pile.

After planing off the floor finish, the oak boards that remained were approximately 5/8" thick. To make the bed, I had to do a lot of lamination glue-ups to make the posts and rails. I also made some "balls" to mount on the top of the posts. The close up picture shown is of the prototype. The reason it became the prototype is because there was a large tear out on the other side not shown in the picture.

The next two images are of the milled up boards for the bed, as well as an image of the head board and foot board pieces dry fit together without the slats.

The rest of the pictures are of the bed prior to delivery to my niece.

The slats are 1/2" thick boards that had rabbets cut on both sides to allow the slats to overlap each other. The also have a 1/4" tenon on each end to slide into a slot mortised into the top an bottom rails. A small chamfer along the sides to give the appearance similar to beadboard.

I used some inexpensive pine boards to create the platform for the mattress. I've used plywood in the past for this feature, but I'm finding that I really like having the individual boards. This makes the transportation and assembly of the bed much easier. And I also think it gives the bed a more 'crafted' look.

I finished the bed with Minwax Golden Oak stain, and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane.

The plans for the bed were really made up as I went along at times. The reason for that was trying to make use of the wood planks I had available. Many of the flooring boards had nail holes to work around. And a large percentage of the boards had grooves cut into the back side, which caused me to have to cut the boards into three strips that were about 2" wide. These were used to make the slats. I had originally planned to put a flat top across the head and foot boards, but I ran out of flooring boards wide enough to use for this purpose. I guess you just have to be flexible!