Some people had asked me to post more detailed instructions, so here it is – I did my best. This is not a carpentry blog, so please forgive me if the instructions are somewhat vague…

Caution before you tackle this project:

• If you have a question, please feel free to contact me. However, I am not a professional furniture builder – I may not be able to answer questions that are too technical.
• I am not sure how strong this bed will be in the long run.
• If you don’t have basic carpentry skills, find someone who does to help you.
• I cannot be responsible if the bed doesn’t turn out right for you.

Instructions:

1. Build a support (bottom) frame – this part will not show once the bed is complete

a. Lay four (4) 2 x 6 pieces flat and attach (screw) them together with wood glue and four (4) metal braces.

b. Attach (screw) three (3) 2 x 4 pieces inside of the 2 x 6 frame with wood glue and five (5) metal braces for additional support.

c. Attach all eight (8) legs.

d. Attache two (2) L-shaped metal braces for a headboard. Attach while the bottom frame is still upside down. You will need to prop the bottom frame up to do this. Leave an enough space for the headboard to slide in (between the support frame and corner of the braces).

e. Flip the bottom frame once the glue is dry.

2. Attach (glue and screw) the top frame to the support (bottom) frame – the top frame is the visible part of the bed. The side and foot pieces overhangs by 2″ – be sure to screw where the mattress covers the screw holes. Use clamps!

3. Attach (glue and screw) slats to the support (bottom) frame.

4. Fill the screw holes with wood filler, sand and stain the top frame. Follow manufacturer’s instruction.

5. Headboard

a. I used iron-on oak veneer edge banding for edges. I then sanded and stained before attaching it to the body.

b. Attach the headboard. Be sure to use the short screws for the upper part of the L-shaped braces (so they don’t go through to the other side). Screw (with longer screws) into the support (bottom) frame as well.

6. Finished product.

Material List:
This material list is to make a queen size bed that measures 64” W x 82” L. You may need to make adjustments according to your needs and the size of your mattress.

You should be able to obtain all the materials locally except the hairpin legs. You will need to order the legs from hairpinlegs.com. These legs are made to order, so I recommend ordering them ahead of a time.

You will need a lot of different kind/size screws. I cannot remember exactly what kind/size of screws I used. All I can say is that you would want to use the strongest/longest screws possible for maximum support. If you are not sure what kind/size of screws you need, please consult with a store associate (good luck!) where you are purchasing your materials.

For the Support (bottom) Frame:
The support (bottom) frames measures 58” W x 79” L. The top frame will over hang the bottom frame by 2” on each side and foot of the bed.

* 2 – 79” 2 x 6
* 2 – 47” 2 x 6
* 1 – 68” 2 x 4
* 2 – 22″ 2 x 4
* 9 – 10” metal braces
* Screws to attach the metal braces
* 6 to 8 – 8” Hairpin legs (only four legs are visible from outside – I used four hairpin legs and four wooden legs, but I recommend using the same type of legs because it can be hard to match the height of the two different kind of legs)
* Screws to attach the hairpin legs
* 2 – 10” L-shaped metal braces to attach a headboard
* Screws to attach the L-shaped braces to the support frame

L Shape Brace

For the Top Frame:
* 1 – 64” 1 x 6 red oak board
* 2 – 76 ½” 1 x 6 red oak board
* 1 – 52 ½” 1 X 3 red oak board
* Screws

For the Slats:
* 11 – 52.5” 1 x 4 (you may need more/less 1 x 4s depending on your spacing between slats)
* Screws

For the Headboard:
* 1 – 22” x 64” Furniture grade oak plywood – I cut a notch on each side (bottom)
* Screws to attach the headboard to the L-shaped metal braces which are already attached to the support frame
* Iron-on oak veneer edge banding

Tools:
*Drill
*Saw
*Clamps
*Wood glue
*Tape measure
*Pencil
*Carpenter’s square
*Sanding block or paper (150 grit)
*Wood filler
*Safety glasses
*Wood stain of your choice and tools recommended for applying the stain

Kid Made Modern by Todd Oldham

The 192 page book features 52 fun and easy-to-follow projects inspired by many iconic mid century modern designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Girard. This book is perfect for any school age children with all skill levels. Some are simple enough for kids to do by themselves and some are fairly challenging that require adults’ assistance. All projects have easy to follow instructions and appropriate photographs. Most of projects can be done with inexpensive supplies and/or ordinary household materials.

Fort of Cards Project

Kid Made Modern is not only a creative craft book, but also a great educational tool. The book introduces youngsters to art and design by integrating sections called the “All About” pages that explains the fundamentals of art media and techniques. There are sections on mid century modern designers that inspired the craft projects as well. If you are a parent, this book will provide hours of creative fun for your child. If a project is too complicated for your child, why not join your child? It will be a good bonding experience for you and your child.

Learn about Designers

Todd Oldham has successfully introduced the readers a concept that good design was for everyone by coming up with brilliant mid century modern inspired DIY books for both adults and kids: Handmade Modern and Kid Made Modern – what’s next? I have five dogs and two cats, so I’d like to see a DIY book dedicated for pet stuff. Call it “Pet Made Modern” – what do you think?

*****************************
Special thanks to Sara at AMMO Books

Make It! Mid-Century Modern

“Make It! Mid-Century Modern” is divided into six chapters according to designer: Charles Eames, Alexander Girard, Alexander Calder, George Nelson, Piet Mondrian, and Eero Saarinen. Each chapter includes designer’s background and DIY projects with user friendly step-by-step instructions and pictures.

One of the easy projects

If you are looking for a simple, easy, yet stylish DIY project, this book is perfect for you. Most of the projects featured here are small and not time consuming. The instructions are very well written with appropriate pictures. The book is available in two formats: high-resolution PDF download (US$9.99) or print version (US$18.00). For more information, visit Curbly website.

or try something more challenging...

DIY Wall Circles

So, something circle shaped, light, and custom paintable… I remembered seeing a wall application kit online. The kit came with a set of eight paintable wooden circles. It seemed perfect, but $42 for a set?! There had to be a cheaper way to do this… So, I visited a local craft store in search for some wooden circle ideas. I found some unfinished wooden circles without holes. “That’s a start…” I thought – “but I need some wooden circles with holes…” As I was walking around the store, I saw a bunch of embroidery hoops hanging from the wall shelf. My search was finally over!

Unfinished Wall Circles

I ended up with 12 embroidery hoops in different sizes. I just used the inner hoops for the project. I first filled the small holes on hoops. I then sanded them smooth and primed. I painted (two coats) some white (the same color as the baseboards) and some orange. The original plan was to paint them chartreuse to match the wall color, but I thought they would blend in too much. I thought orange would “pop” nicely, but still tie into the color scheme since there was a quite bit of orange already in my bedroom. I used scrapbooking glue dots to hang the hoops on the wall. I had everything except the circles on hand, so I only spent $10 for this project.

My $10 Wall Circles Project

Her Side

My plan was to use the leftover oak plywood sheet from the bed project. When I bought the 4’ x 8’ sheet at a local hardware store, I had them cut into pieces. For legs, I used a set of vintage hairpin legs I already had. Each nightstand would have a storage space with a door and a separate storage area for books and/or knick-knacks. Surprisingly, building the nightstands was harder than building the bed. The measurements had to be super precise – unlike the bed, 1/16 of an inch difference made a difference! I measured twice, but still cut twice (if not more)… The hardest part was fitting and attaching the doors. No matter what I did, the doors were crooked. It was hard to evenly space the doors top and bottom without leaving too much/less gaps. I was so frustrated that I even thought of just gluing it onto the body.

His Side

We stained the body with the same color as the bed. We wanted the doors to be something different, so we bought a colored stain called “Mandarin Orange.” We thought the color would tie into the color of the wall application. The color of the doors didn’t really turn out as we wanted it to be though. It looks more red than orange… After attaching the knobs, the color didn’t bother me too much. I am happy that now I have a pair of matching nightstands that fit our needs – and they are one of a kind no one else has

My First Eames Fiberglass Chair

Now that I learned how to restore the Eames fiberglass shell chairs, I decided to tackle another project. I was going to restore one of the two orange arm shells I purchased online a few years ago. I have been using one with a rocker base and the other with an Eiffel base. After the purchase, I used a fiberglass cleaner designed for boats to clean and polish them. They were not as shiny as I wanted them to be, so I decided to try the restoration method I learned from a website called “chairfag.com” to restore the fiberglass back to its original luster. It’s a really good website that walks you through an arm shell shock mount removal and fiberglass restoration with a lot of pictures. If you are planning to restore your shell chair, you should definitely check it out.

Sanding the Chair

I set up a working area outside, since it requires a wet sanding. I pulled a garden hose and filled the bottom of my chair with water. Gearing up with a safety glasses, a mask and a pair of thick vinyl gloves, I started to sand the chair with a fine sanding block. With the garden hose, I wet the area as I sanded to prevent fiberglass dust from getting all over the place. There were some tiny paint spots on my chair I didn’t notice before. I got rid of them by sanding the chair as well.

Cleaning the Chair

Once I sanded the entire chair, I rinsed it with water and gave it a sponge bath with Oxyclean to remove the embedded dirt as much as possible. Then I let it air dry.

Applying Penetrol

The next step was to coat the chair with a product called “Penetrol” that I picked up at Home Depot. To do this, I moved the working area to my porch. The porch was a perfect spot as it was well ventilated and had a minimum effect from the wind and dust. Penetrol is an oil paint conditioner that is also used to restore fiberglass. I first applied the coat to the bottom of the chair and let it set for a few hours. I then attached the base, flipped the chair over and applied Penetrol to the rest of the chair.

Before

The chair is now shiny and looks much better than it was.

After

Disclaimer – this post is just to share my experience and not intended as a tutorial to restore your chair. If you are restoring your chair, I would recommend you research well before tackling your restoration project.

Modernica Case Study V-Leg Bed

I have an eleven-year-old dog named Cid with a back problem. He has a hard time jumping up on our bed – so I decided it was time to do something… Get a platform bed! I have always wanted a George Nelson Case Study Bed with hairpin legs (v-legs). Needless to say, the original piece is out of reach, but Modernica sells reproductions for around $1,500 (queen size). I think $1,500 is not a lot of money for a nice bed – the question is… Do I want to pay $1,500 for a bed? Not really – so I started to explore my options. I searched online to see if there were any other styles – yes, but nothing within my budget. Then I started to think all these platform beds were so simple that I could build one myself. I have never tackled building furniture, so let this be the first one!

Hairpin Legs

I researched many sources and decided to make a platform bed with slats. My original idea was to make a platform bed using a plan in Todd Oldham’s book called Handmade Modern. I could make the platform part according to the plan using four plywood pieces and attach some hairpin legs instead of the pipe legs in the book. Then, I read somewhere that putting a mattress on a solid surface prevents it from breathing, thus resulting in mold growth underneath the mattress. Yuk! I cannot let my dog (and us) sleep on the moldy mattress!

For the body, I would use some 2x6s and 2x4s (for the support frame), oak boards (for the top frame), and 1x4s (for slats). The headboard would be cut from a 4×8 furniture grade oak plywood sheet. I could then use the rest to build two nightstands. For legs, I would use four 8” stainless steel hairpin legs and four wooden legs. Four wooden legs would be attached inner part of the bed where you could not see.

DIY Case Study Style Bed Materials

I bought all the materials local except the hairpin legs. I made my reluctant husband help me build a Case Study style platform bed one weekend… He was fine with the old bed – but I convinced him that Cid could hurt his back worse trying to jump on the bed that was too high for him. After all, Cid was his precious angel, too.

Slats are going in...

First we put the support frame together – four pieces of 2x6s were attached together with wood glue and steel braces. Inside of the frame, we attached some 2x4s for additional support. Then we attached all the legs and flipped the frame over to attach the top frame. Since this would be the only visible part of the platform, we chose red oak boards. We then attached 11 slats that hold our mattress.

Finished Product

The headboard was cut from a 4×8 oak plywood sheet. The widest oak board available was 12 inches which was too narrow to attach to the support frame. Modenica Case Study Bed uses three L shaped braces to attach the headboard to the platform body. Instead of using the L shaped braces, I cut the plywood 22″ x 64″ with two notches on each side and attached it directly to the support frame. Then, we attached the two steel braces (behind the headboard) for additional support. We stained the top frame and headboard with “honey” colored stain.

Not too bad, huh?

We spent about $350 for the materials. We are pretty happy and proud with how it turned out. The bed feels pretty sturdy and the height is just right. The only regret is that when we are standing up, we cannot see the hairpin legs very well – but Cid no longer has problem getting up on the bed and that’s all that matters!

First thing first, I needed to pick a new wall paint color. My usual course is to visit a local home improvement center and stand in front of bazillion color samples with fancy names for a few hours. This time I visited a Sherwin Williams store instead. I was glad I did – they had a series of color palette called “Suburban Modern.” The brochure reads “Your future is bright. With clear, cheerful colors the 1950′s exhibited a new American outlook. The exuberance showed up on the walls as striking shades like Chartreuse and organic shapes like boomerangs. Whether you just feel nostalgia for those optimistic days, or you want to recreate the period in exacting detail, our Suburban palette provides the hues you desire.”

Suburban Modern Brochure Front

Suburban Modern Brochure Back

The brochure for interior paint offered 10 color choices with possible matching palettes (wall, trim, and accent) suggestion. How convenient! I wanted the colors that match with my bed spread, so I picked “Chartreuse” for wall and “Classic French Gray” for accent. I painted the entire room in Chartreuse and a wide border going across two walls. There are some imperfections on the wall from the previous owner I couldn’t fix, but I love how it turned out so far. I am planning to build a new bed and two night stands. I will follow up with my progress in a future post.

Work in Progress

Free To a Good Home

The chairs were in pretty bad shape. The upholsteries were ripped at the bottom exposing the faded fiberglass shells. I could tell that the back of the chairs were once red, but they were also faded. I had seen people restoring these chairs, so I thought I could give them a try. I had a three day Memorial Day weekend ahead of me with no plans anyway, so this would be my good weekend project. I found a good website called “chairfag.com.” Although their step-by-step restoration tutorial was not for a padded chair, they offered a lot of useful information. I used it as my guidance. 

Can I Save It?

First, the chairs were removed from the base. The screws were so rusted and two of them broke off and stuck in the screw holes on one chair. It seemed that two of the chairs were in slightly better condition. The third chair had more rips on the upholstery than the other two. I decided to work on one of the better condition chairs. One of the chairs had a sticker still attached that read “Date of Delivery…117-75.” So these chairs are 34 years old.

Herman Miller Tags

I started the restoration process by removing the naugahyde vinyl upholstery. Some websites said to remove it carefully so that you could use it to make a pattern to reupholster later, but since the fabric was torn so badly I didn’t think reupholstering it was my option. I thought of saving the fabric to make my own naugahyde monster though. Under the vinyl was the sponge pad, which was glued onto the chair. Glue was dried out in some areas and the pad came off easily. Glue was stuck to the pad in the other areas. I tried to avoid using any chemicals, so I first tried to peel the glue residue by rubbing it with a wet towel. To my surprise, a lot of them came off that way. The really gunky area, I saturated the area with non-toxic, citrus based glue remover. It also worked well.

The Naked Shell

After getting all the gunky stuff removed, I gave the chair a sponge bath with baking soda. I could not get the embedded dirt out of the fiberglass. I also tried Oxiclean spray and it lifted a little bit of dirt out of the fiberglass, but not all. A good sponge bath revealed the original color and shine of the chair except the bottom part. The bottom part that was exposed to the weather for who knows how long was totally faded. I worked on the remaining two chairs and the results were the same. Now I have three red and white two-toned Eames chairs!

Before and After

I already have three Eames shell chairs in my house and don’t really have a room for another three chairs. I decided these chairs would look nice on my porch. I even have three extra H-bases sitting in my shed – PERFECT!!! I spent about four hours on each chair cleaning it up. My neighbors watched me fighting with these two-toned chairs all weekend probably thought I was a nut. Who cares? I am very happy with the result and the fact that I saved these chairs from the junk yard and gave them a good home. They are sitting on my porch now awaiting for some cushions to cover the faded bottoms.

Restored Eames Chairs