Queen Loft Bed in Five Easy Pieces

●Simplicity

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to not counting the 1x6 slats that support the queen size mattress in the count of 5 pieces for this recent commission. Otherwise, we have a one-piece foot board assembly with permanently attached ladder, a headboard assembly tall enough to allow sitting up in bed (for some), two 2x6 rails which drop into the foot and headboards on heavy duty bed rail fasteners and one lengthwise safety rail that also provides rigidity:

Assembly time is super quick, about 15 minutes. Add to that any needed shimming to level the legs and placing a couple of 1/4” lag bolts anywhere through the loft into wall studs. The concept in this design is to put all the assembly labor in the shop rather than at the site, thus no collection of boards, no bags of hardware, no hours of assembly time. If portability is of any concern or one enjoys working in the shop this design accommodates it nicely. Having spent two hours of my life in toto trying to distribute mattress slats evenly on a bed frame I decided to make this simple too by gluing spacers on top of the ledgers:

●Headroom

An unfortunate drawback in most loft designs is requiring adults to crouch when entering the space beneath. In order to allow most women and quite a few men to walk freely under my design I enlisted the help of staff member Derrick in my SketchUp first draft to establish the 5'9” clearance I was seeking:

Given the typical 8' ceiling height this is about the absolute maximum loft headroom after taking into account the mattress thickness and seated height for a child or short person on the mattress. Tall folks would need to read propped on their elbow. Note: the lower and upper clearances in this particular design were perfect for the granddaughter who commissioned it but may not be suitable in other circumstances.

●Safety

I found it disturbingly odd that both the commercial loft units I looked at as well as a DIY set of plans from Home Depot had no railings above the mattress level. This design does provide a 1x4 railing several inches above the mattress on all sides. This not only adds rigidity but prevents the inadvertent active sleeper roll out. The railings in the head and foot boards are fully mortised pine 1x4's, a pair for the headboard end. The 1x1 ledgers are glued, nailed and screwed into the rails. The first step of the ladder is 14 ½” from the floor, but all other steps including the upper cross beam and the safety rail are exactly 12” apart which will not disturb the proprioception of foot positioning without looking. The ladder is permanently attached for further safety.

●Joinery & Dimensions

The 2x6 foot board and headboard rails are attached to the L posts at each butt joint with four 7/16” dowels. Better have a helper when doing this glue-up! I used a standard four-hole Dowl-It jig for this purpose by removing all the bushings, leaving four 7/16” ID holes. Care was taken not to ruin the internal threads of the jig with the 7/16” brad point bit, and they came through just fine. The basic assembly is based on four fully mortised bed rail fasteners, though the Woodcraft set I used was not the best. The countersinks in the steel plate had to be increased to recess hardened 2½” #8 screws. The screw heads must not protrude above the plates. Also, the mortises were deepened about .02” greater than the plate thickness (see photo below) to ensure the fasteners would draw up tightly when dropped into place. I cut the mortises into the rail ends using a tenoning jig on a table saw which made this step quick and easy. Luckily a high shop ceiling allowed this since the 69 1/2" rail stands vertically on the saw.

Overall dimensions are 89” high at the top of the foot board post, 94” high at the top of the headboard post, 80” long and 58” wide. Less the thickness of the 2x6's this yields a well for a queen size mattress that has interior dimension of 77” long and 55” wide. This allows a space of 1"-2" around the mattress to facilitate making the bed. The tapering on the bottoms of the legs is not decorative! Obviously, the foot board and headboard assemblies cannot go through a door frame upright but can be moved about easily on their sides. The taper is just what is needed to allow the taller headboard assembly to move around the corner of two 3' wide hallways which meet at right angles to one another. That about the smallest turning situation you would have in a typical home.

●Reuse and Cat Use

In keeping with a basic principle of Flying Circus Studios all the redwood used in the loft was salvaged from a dismantled deck. The great problem with this reuse was the many layers of deck oil that had hardened after several decades of Flagstaff weathering. This required multiple shallow passes through a planer destroying two sets of planer blades in the process. I made no attempt to fill the blackened screw holes which add an element of curiosity and visual interest. The wood itself was amazingly free of cracking and splitting, though, of course, boards were culled and cut with this aspect in mind. Even the cutoffs were utilized to make in-drawer knife blocks for my Etsy shop.

The cat of the house immediately found this new treehouse of great interest and actually scaled one of the posts vertically to reach the plush mattress above. This left numerous scratches up and down the post (repaired but visible just above nose). Now a series of steps has been arranged to allow said kitty to reach the mattress by jumping instead of clawing. 

Unquestionably this new loft bed is the best seat in the house. Its owner thinks so too. 

 

Furniture Making: Art or Craft?, A Reflection

 

When is the last time you sat down for a good cup of coffee at a Shakespearean love sonnet or hung your coat on Dante's Inferno? When is the last time you put your clean socks in a Steve Martin movie or slid your dishes into a Greek tragedy? When is the last time you stored your books in a Beethoven symphony or reached to silence your alarm on the Song of Solomon? When is the last time you relaxed to watch TV on the History of the World by H.G.Wells, or played poker on a ballet, or put your feet up on a good model of the universe? 

No, not recently. These nine absurd suggestions encompass the nine Greek Muses of the arts and are meant to point out a chasm. In order, they are Erato, Muse of lyric and love poetry; Calliope, Muse of heroic or epic poetry; Thalia, Muse of comedy; Melpomene, Muse of tragedy; Euterpe, Muse of music; Polyhymnia, Muse of sacred poetry; Clio, the Muse of history; Terpsichore, the Muse of dance and finally something that we typically don't, but probably should, consider an art: Urania, Muse of astronomy. The list juxtaposes these arts to nine common articles of furniture, all of which I have made numerous times, not infrequently with the image of myself as an artist. Yes, it's nice, thinking a of oneself as an artist, a certain elevation and sophistication of life ensues, but in truth a wide chasm separates furniture making and artistic creation.

In a nod to my Greek heritage, I think the original Muses still provide a decent measure of what constitutes art. I distill the matter into a simple question: “Is it useful?” The word furnish itself means to supply with what is useful or necessary, to fit out, provide, equip. Furniture existed in ancient Greece, even in ancient Egypt, and yet the Greeks assigned no Muse to its creation. In my opinion if an object is useful, no matter how intricately decorated, no matter what the skill level required, no matter how beautiful, it is craft, of the finest order perhaps, but still craft. These Muses inspired works with no utilitarian purpose or use. My creations as a furniture-maker were quite the opposite.

Back in the day I was often a participant, organizer and/or juror of a show held at the Coconino Center for the Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona with the simple and unpretentious title of “Useful Objects.” It was later renamed as a list of materials, but its purpose was to showcase the local area's best weavers, blacksmiths, potters, beadmakers, carvers, quilters, metalworkers, woodworkers, jewelry makers, etc. Now all these crafts are similar to furniture making insofar as the use or purpose, even if that be personal adornment, is the essential defining element. Rarely a piece, say wood marquetry or fabric, would have no other destiny than to be hung on a wall much as a Salvador Dali print would be. The arts of painting, photography, sculpture, drawing and printmaking were not part of this show. It was a craft show.

To help further clarify my distinction between art and craft I introduce the concept of the “blank canvas,” which I use as shorthand for other blanks, whether they be blank paper, unexposed film, block of marble, music staff paper, digital void, etc. I never entered my shop, no not once, though I guess I could have, to face a "blank canvas." I always knew exactly the purpose to which my piece would be put, though there might a thousand ways to approach it. The essential element was use or purpose, which predetermined most of what followed. I could have proceeded to make, for instance, a table six feet tall, but then it would have been sculpture, heh? A jeweler, likewise, does not make an earring with no means of attachment. A potter does not make a plate with mountainous terrain on it.

I could not help but inquire of my friendly AI companion what it had to say on the distinction between art and craft, and it turns out it concurs with the Greeks. Here you go:

Art is an expression and application of imagination and creative skill. It is a form of communication that is intended to evoke an emotional response from the viewer. The purpose of creating a work of art is to make something that can be appreciated for its aesthetic beauty. The creative visual arts are traditionally painting, sculpture, photography, or drawing. The performing arts include theater, dance, music, opera, musical theater, magic, puppetry, comedy, circus and improvisation. (Filmmaking was treated separately from performing arts.)

Craft, on the other hand, involves the creation of functional or decorative items, often requiring a specific set of skills and following a predetermined plan or pattern. Crafts can include weaving, carving, pottery, embroidery, macrame, beading, sewing, quilting, and many other forms. The purpose of creating a craft is to make something that is useful or decorative. Crafts may sometimes be called decorative arts.

There is great joy to the craftsperson in creating a piece of fine workmanship. Theirs is a life of considerable pleasure, fascination and absorption. Nonetheless, I daresay nearly every craftsperson has entertained the question as to whether or not they were an "artist." I for one, after many years of thinking myself an artist, now make a clear distinction between the creative process involved in art and the creative process involved in craft, which is so front weighted by utility and function. Alas, I would like too, but I cannot say furniture making is one of the arts, and neither do the ancient Greeks nor Microsoft.

Maker's Time, A Reflection

I am thinking it's time for this blog to take a new direction. In the past the emphasis has been on particular works and woodworking tips...what and how. Needless to say, the sole proprietor woodworker's life is all-consuming. There are customers to meet, plans to draw, materials to buy, catalogs to savor, parts lists to compile, schedules to extend, tools to accumulate, new jigs to clutter space, blogs to write, maintenance to defer, shop to clean, wood to cut, rout and sand, components to assemble, completed works to finish and deliveries to make. Some family time and sleep are then well in order, but reflection would be a luxury. Nonetheless, given the subject of this blog is my career as a woodworker, it seems appropriate to do some reflecting on this life now that the shutters are largely drawn. That brings me to the primary ingredient of my work, the irascible and evanescent element of time.

Yes, my only plea to the clock was to slow down. Having done various rote jobs in my life, though fortunately never for very long, I knew well the meaning of watching the clock. Yet how opposite to watching the clock were the hours spent in the shop, avoiding any flirtatious, even fearful glances in the direction of the clock, whose hands seemed visibly to rotate. As the workday began to draw to a close, in the late afternoon, the hands experienced even further acceleration. The speed of time's movement at times slipped into a transcendence of time. I feel very lucky, indeed, to have, not always, but often, enjoyed this state of absorption, enhanced not only by the manual nature of the work, but also by the lack of an overseer. Also, the opportunity of losing a finger at any moment enhances attention nicely. Much of my working life passed this way.

I once spent a lovely summer living alone in a brown log cabin not far from the shore of Lake Superior. It was situated on a grassy knoll just above a small stream sprinkled with small boulders and falls, rapid flowing. A talkative stream it was, and at times I would swear to hear the conversations of passerby. It must have been spring-fed as it never wavered in its flow, hour to hour, week to week, rain or sun, all summer long.

Current psychology has a term, quite applicable to this stream, a term I rather like, “flow state.” This describes well the absorption I could feel in the shop. Some of the characteristics of this flow state tally with my own experience: complete concentration along with an absence of rumination, performing well-rehearsed tasks with effortlessness, the challenge of the work closing in on, though not exceeding, my skill level, pleasure and reward in seeing my goals accomplished...that pile of rough boards at the day's start transforming into a useful, perhaps even beautiful, object. And, not the least, the fleeting transcendence of time.

I have often thought of the following passage, one of my favorites, in reference to my woodworking life, a passage from Henry David Thoreau's Walden which describes perhaps the ultimate flow state, an artist who passes beyond Time:

There was an artist in the city of Kuoroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff, Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly into the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made out of imperfect material; and as he searched for it and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance as he could not overcome him. Before he found a stick in all respects suitable the city of Kuoroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole star, and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and no more time had passed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful.

 

M.V. HYAK Complete

Tom Schell's exceptional model of the Washington State ferry M.V. Hyak is complete, but this is not new news:

It has been convenient these last few years to be able to blame various personal and business failings on COVID, but, alas, I cannot use that excuse to justify the three years, two month's hiatus between my first M.V. Hyak blog post and this second one. The delay is curiously a result of the precision craftsmanship of the ferry's builder, Thomas R. Schell. When he handed over the completed model to me for photography I planned to show each deck. I did not realize, however, that in removing the sun deck I had inadvertently taken the restaurant deck with it, so perfectly were they joined, yet with no mechanical attachment. Thus, I missed it entirely in the photo shoot and proceeded straight to the passenger deck. Since this photo shoot immediately preceded my moving away from our mutual hometown of Tucson, only recently has it been possible to rectify the error. The lack of any other blog entries whatsoever is another matter altogether.

Considering that Tom Schell's entire model is designed and constructed “from scratch,” the tight fit of each of the decks is quite amazing. Due to the lightness of the thin bass wood used throughout, even the slightest distortion of a single deck would result in defective mating with gaps amidship or fore and aft. For instance, the passenger deck had a slight upward bow at its ends when finally complete. Tom placed small thin lead weights on either end until it settled upon the car deck below, and then he glued these to the underside of the passenger deck resulting in its perfect mating. Likely, removing these today would make no difference. To ensure that a light breeze would not send decks sailing, we added some hidden weight to the topmost deck, the sun deck. I bored out the bottom of the two stacks in order to insert lead split shot. Do review the previous post for Tom's own description of his work and other deck photos. So, without further ado here is the missing restaurant deck:

Three closer views of the restaurant deck, pleasantly, a light passenger load:

The passenger deck below:

Moving above to the sun deck, Tom built removable roofs over each of the two wheelhouses where we find the pilot and his tools of navigation:

Some notes:

● All windows in the vessel are actually glazed. Tom describes his method in his notes in the Nov. 30, 2020, Hyak post, i.e. sandwiching clear plastic between two pieces of 1/32” thick bass wood. Note that all walls had to be shaped to match the contours of the hull. Well, OK, you may say it's not rocket science, but I beg to differ, as that was, in fact, Tom's career path.

● Hollow punches were used to cut round objects from thin bass wood such as the stools found in the dining area.

● This model is constructed entirely in the traditional handmade manner with no CNC machinery or laser printers employed.

● The perimeter dado in the solid walnut base, made by yours truly, (see the restaurant deck photo above) receives the custom-made plastic dust cover which protects the model. Tom was most kind to include a brass plaque on the base attributing my contributions.

● I asked Tom recently how he counted 5 decks as I only counted 4. He pointed out that the car deck is actually composed of two levels with ramps leading up to a “mezzanine.” Here you can barely see the cars tucked underneath this second deck, again more authenticity:

I conclude with a note on global warming and ferries. The Washington State Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal in Seattle, for instance, is being rebuilt to accommodate higher tides. Here is view down the car deck of a B.C. Ferry on a recent trip after which we passengers had to exit via the car ramp due to the tide being too high to use the normal passenger ramps: