Is that wood?!

Now that summer is coming to a close and the daytime highs are getting more reasonable, it's time for me to start a woodworking project! Now, I'm not one of those craftsmen that has a nice, air-conditioned and heated shop that exists on their property only for woodworking....at least, not yet! No, I do all of my work in the 'ol garage like many others do. At least though, I have recently done a fairly thorough garage cleaning and threw away.....yes, you read it right, threw away several items, sold a couple of large items on Craigslist and now have more room in my garage than I have had in a long time. Well.... it helps too that I now have a storage shed that my dad and I built over the summer. It is the new home for my riding mower and most of my lumber. I will talk about building my shed in another post but in this post, I'll begin sharing the process as I go through it to build my next wood project. What is it, you ask?!.....well, read on to find out.

We have been sleeping in a California King water bed for many years now but we decided that we are getting kinda tired of it. As we started looking for a new bed, we talked about just building a new one instead. Now, my wife really likes the rustic, knotty pine look and I feel like I can build a pretty decent-looking bed so I spent some time designing a queen size bed after she explained what she would like. We settled on a final design and now I'm ready to buy the lumber and get started.
I have discovered that it's hard to find 4x4 (untreated) pine posts and 2x8 pine boards in the local lumber store, so now I have to decide on whether to go with douglas fir posts and boards with knotty pine panels or make my own bed posts using a core and then surround it with 1x4 boards. Obviously, this would take more time and effort so...... I have a decision to make.

In the meantime, here are some useful tips that I have learned from my past projects:

• Measure twice, even 3 times before making a cut. If you cut it and it's the wrong length or size (on the short side), guess what....you need another board.
• If you are doing the work by yourself, then clamps are a woodworker's best friend when it comes to holding the piece in place while making a cut.
• Wear those safety glasses!
• Don't try to use your power tool in a way that it is not designed to be used. It is NOT safe!
• Take the time to build special jigs that will save you time in the long run and in many cases, just make it easier to do some things. There are many free plans online for specialized jigs and devices that can be used with certain tools. 
• If there is going to be a significant temperature change between the garage and the house, consider storing the lumber in the house when you are not working with it. I have had edge-glued panels warp on me because of this situation.

The construction of this bed is going to require some precision cuts and the use of my table saw, miter saw, router and table and belt sander. I can't wait to smell the wood!

Stay tuned for an update post once I start on this project.