Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Jeremy style twin bunks

This is our first Jeremy style in twin bunks. The color is Puritan Pine, and they look great. This set also happens to have stairs but that is an option that you can add to any of our bed styles both bunks and lofts. I think that the arches look great. This is a fairly new style for us and there are so many things we have not done with it yet. We only build to order so we have all these great ideas in our heads and we just have to wait for someone else to want it. This style could be really cute as toddler lofts or bunks. We can make it as twin over full bunks however we will only do that as a L where the bottom bed comes out from the upper one.
This picture sort of shows one of my favorite parts of when we stain a bed like this. On the side can you see the little dark circle? That is a wooden plug that is covering the lag bolt that holds the frame together, it is made out of dowel and it is not the same kind of wood as the bed frame. So when I stain the beds it takes the stain completely different from the rest of the frame. I love that little detail, when you paint it is completely lost. It just blends in and you would have to look close to even see that it is there.

These last two pictures make it look good. The stairs are just like the ones in the Ciera style before. The steps are drawers for storage, they have no knobs for tripping the handle is built into the drawer front. And they can be added to any of our beds.



Up next is a set of bunk beds that is almost completed. They are for big boys, teenagers not toddlers so we did some extra supports on them to make them safe. And then another Jeremy. This time it will be a full size loft with a desk and shelf built in. Looking foreword to that one.


Sunday, December 27, 2009

Answer to a question

A question was asked about these little Ciera style bunk beds for toddlers and I think that it deserves a whole entry and not just a reply on the one it was asked in. The question was about the size of these little beds. They are 30x55x58 inches high. From the floor to the bottom of the top bunk is 38 inches. Now all of that said, any of that can be changed if you need it to. The first thing is that not all crib mattresses are the same. So if you want to order these make sure of the size of your mattress and we will build to fit them. Other adjustments could also be made, for example we made one set that left room for drawers or storage baskets underneath. We could also make the drawers under the bottom bunk as well. Also notice that the one above has safety gates, and the one below does not. They are an option that we can add if your kids are small and it would make them more safe. So if you are interested in gates let us know and we can include them in your price quote.
Last you will notice that these are all the same style. That is purely coincidental. We can make them in any of our bed frame styles. If you like the idea but want to know what they would cost in another style just ask.

They are very cute and we love making them so if you want some let us know. As always to get a price quote send us an email at fhlunsford@msn.com I know that looks like a link but I don't think it is, for one I am not smart enough to make it one, so you will just have to type it in your address Field on your email program. Sorry, it is actually amazing that I have figured out how to blog, you will just have to be patient as I master computer technology. Of course just about the time I do it will all change again.


Friday, December 25, 2009

Flood

While places further north and west have been enduring blizzard conditions we have been having rain, and rain and more rain. I have not accurately measured it but on the news they said we are in the area that was going to get around 9 inches in the whole storm system. I believe have probably come close to it. This is the last picture I took last night. That is a little bridge that is on the road between our house and my parents. Usually there is about three feet down to the water here. Earlier in the day the kids and I crossed here. I carried the little guys and the big kids held on to me. But when I took this I would not have crossed that on a bet!
This was earlier in the day, but well after I crossed it with the kids. At least in this picture it looks like a road.


This little creek is usually not much of a going concern, but it was well out of its banks yesterday.



As the day progressed it made it much higher than this. I was reminded of the old Johny Cash song where he keeps asking "How highs the water momma?" We didn't really try to get out yesterday but I think that the road is not passable. Up until about 1:00 there were a few people going past, but after that we did not see one rig the rest of the day. It rained a good part of the night so I am curious to see what will be out there when the sun comes up. The temp has dropped now to the point where any more precip will be snow. But I think most of the moisture has moved out of here. We are supposed to deliver a bed to St. Louis in the morning, we will see if the weather will cooperate or not.




Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Early American Ciera Twin

Here is the Ciera loft that my hubby just delivered yesterday. The little guy who the bed was for thought it was just like a rocket. I think that it is too bad that grown ups can't see the world like kids do. My kids get so excited about everything. Today we were at Lowes buying lumber, and our 5 and 7 year olds were so excited about riding on the big blue lumber cart. I thought how nice it would be to be that excited about anything today. Although we are building a little house and today my husband and I came up with some cool ideas for the bathroom that we both agree about and will be look great, that was pretty exciting. Back to the bed, the last good picture I posted of the Ciera style was painted white and looked very girly, this one I think is perfect for a boy with the darker stain. It is amazing how different colors can completely change the same piece of furniture.
Now we are working on a Jeremy style set of twin bunk beds with stairs instead of a ladder. As soon as there are some decent pictures to show off I will post them.

Monday, December 21, 2009

How to reach us.

If you would like to talk to us about placing an order or if you have questions there are a couple ways that you can get ahold of us. You can always leave a comment on the blog here. I get them as an email so I always know that someone has something to say. But unless you leave your contact information with your message I can't always answer your question. And I realize that you may not always want to put your contact information on a blog. We don't like to put prices on the blog because lumber is like gas, the price can very quickly change. So you can always send us an email at fhlunsford@msn.com We will answer said email and then you will have the information that you want.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Early American

This color is called Early American and we love it. I love opening a new can of stain and seeing what it is going to be when you wipe it off. This color really brings out the grain of the wood. Personally I love stained wood, I prefer it to painted. Don't get me wrong I will paint your project any color that you are in love with. But for me stain is just beautiful it really brings out the beauty of the wood instead of covering it up. This by the way is our Ciera style and it is a twin size loft.
These are the safety and mattress rails. It is amazing how differently each piece of wood takes the stain, even in the same board for that matter. That is the fun of it for me, each time you apply stain to a new piece of wood you are going to get a new result.

Now on a totally different topic. This is the beginning of another project. It is a little play kitchen and it is for the most patient customer we have ever had. Just after we got the order my husband was injured. Only a minor injury but it has put us way behind. And they have been wonderful, patiently waiting for us to get it done. So we have finally gotten caught up to the point of starting on it. This will be a little sink and cupboard.


This will be a stove with an oven, and a microwave as well as a drawer under the oven so she can put her little pots and pans in it. I can't wait to get further along with it.



Friday, December 18, 2009

A cool picture

Okay that is a very bad pun, but I thought this was a cool picture. My husband took it the other day, obviously it was very cold. And Ice is just coming out of the tree. I don't think I have ever seen that before. I have seen ice hang from trees but never come out of them.

We are working, we are making a Ciera loft that will be stained Early American. I will post some pictures when I get some stain on the wood, it is an awesome color.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Delivery day

This is how our delivery day started. I don't think we could have fit much else in do you? This is the special Jeffery style that I mentioned. The extra long legs are for the little man to make tents with. His mom thought that he would have more fun with a bed that he could make his own tent and then change it. We met him today and he was very excited about his new bed. I love that. He was about 4 so we are talking major excitement. I love that.
This is the finished staircase at our house, it looks better when it is in the customers house.


This is the matching dresser that we delivered with the Ciera style with stairs.



Here it is all put together. It turned out great. We love it, and so does our customer so that is good all around.

This is a better picture. He had just finished painting the walls. I think it looks great with the color of the stain.

Next week we are delivering the second half of their order, a Jeremy style with stairs. Like I said with the picture of the truck we could not have fit it in the truck if we had wanted to. But we are going back that way anyway so we will get it to them next week.





Saturday, December 12, 2009

a little bit of color

Now it is put together for real, and the color has been added. At the point the picture was taken it only has one coat of the clear finish. The next step is to sand with very fine sand paper and apply another coat, then the color looks a little richer. You can see the size of the drawers well in this picture. These stairs can be added to any of our loft of bunk beds instead of the ladder. When it is all finished there will be four drawers and the bed will be on one side as a safety rail and on the back will be a rail against the wall and another on the outside edge away from the bed so the little people who go up and down these stairs will have something to hold on to to keep them safe.
The dresser was at the same point, the stain has been applied, and dried and one coat of clear finish has been put on, next up sanding and then another coat. This is obviously a four drawer dresser, we have also made a five drawer. There is no reason we could not build a dresser in just about any shape or size. Here are the drawer fronts all in a row and stained.


That was my day of work yesterday, my hubby got the bed part for this one cut out. Today he will get it put together so that I can get it started on the staining process. This bed is a Ciera style. We also have a Jeremy to build with stairs. But it was a last minute addition (which is always ok we love having work to do) and we have another bed to deliver to another customer on the same day. So our plan is to get this bed and dresser done, and then work on the Jeffery with extra tall bed posts for making tents. Then we will get as far as we can on the Jeremy. If we do not make it before the delivery on Tuesday we already have to go back that direction again so we will bring the Jeremy the next trip. So we will just see how far we get. The time consuming part is really the staining because you have to wait for so many coats to dry, we can't rush on that it takes as much time as it takes.



Thursday, December 10, 2009

Stairs

Today was a little boring, a little exciting and a whole lot cold. Our workshop is a tent right now, and you can heat it a little but the most you can really accomplish is about 10 degrees warmer than outside temp. Today it got to 31 degrees here so do the math it was a cold day. But I keep reminding myself what my dad would say when I said I was cold when I was a kid "just think warm thoughts". Anyway, first the boring part of the day, we use lumber that at first glance is not all that beautiful, but after we run it through the planer and sand it it is really beautiful. We do that for a few reasons. One is that it saves us and you money, and also when you buy basically rough lumber you can plane it down to the size you want, and you can have it all be exactly the same size. Today we finished with the big boards, but we also made trim. You can see it in this picture, it covers the rough edge of the plywood and makes it look finished. While I understand how important it is to the look of the finished piece, it is not very exciting to actually operate the planer. I generally have no patience for the mundane part of the process, I just want to get to the fun stuff. Thankfully my husband is very good at the mundane.
Here is some of the exciting part, this is a dresser that I get to stain tomorrow. Which is cool because I love to do the staining part, it is enjoyable to watch the color come to life and change the look of the piece. And the other part that I love is that I get to do it inside. Yeah.

This is one of the drawer fronts, we angled the edges of it because our customer saw something else on here that we did that to and thought it looked cool. That is how it works, you ask we do, its a good system all around.


Now for more cool. These are the stairs that will lead up to the top bunk instead of a ladder. As a mom the first thought that went through my mind when he set it up was, that will be dangerous, then he told me that he has plans (in his head, everything is always in his head which is why I am just as amazed as anyone when something is finished and I can see what he has figured out in his head) for a rail to make is safe.



So it is just sort of roughed together for the fitting and for the picture. The holes under the steps will have drawers in them, and the rail will be attached when it is finished. And it will be stained, inside where it is warm. (that makes it much easier to think warm thoughts by the way)




Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Next

We are working on more cool stuff, no pictures just yet we are still doing the stuff that is not very exciting but we will get there. We are building beds with stairs instead of a ladder, we are very excited about that. The stairs will double as drawers. Also we are building a dresser. And also a very cool Jeffery style bed. I always love the creativity of our customers. This customer knows how much her little boy loves to make tents on his bed so she asked us to extend the legs of the bed up higher than normal to be the corner posts of future tents, does he have the coolest mom ever or what. So check back pictures will be coming soon.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

An aftertoon at the zoo

After we made our delivery yesterday we were close to the zoo so we took the kids there for the afternoon. If you are anywhere near St. Louise I don't have to tell you it was really cold yesterday. So we bundled up warm and avoided the crowds. We did see some animals and the kids had a good time. But the coolest part for me was that all of the water features were frozen we thought they were really cool ice sculptures so my husband took some pictures. Some of them turned out pretty cool. Enjoy.














Introducing the Clair

We decided to go ahead and give this style a name, this is the Clair. (if I have spelled that wrong let me know) We love it. So here it is as a twin loft, this one though has an extra safety rail for a very little one. Also that solid board on the back would not be on a regular twin loft, I was just too slow with the camera and he started on the next part of the install.
This is the next part of the install. It is a storage unit that can be added to any of our loft beds, the doors and drawer fronts could be like these with the beadboard or they could be plain. Inside the door is two shelves.

This is a twin over full set so that is the headboard and bed rails of the full size.


Here it is in all it's glory. We loved building this bed, and we love how it turned out. There are many possibilities with this style, obviously it could be just a loft of just a full, or twin or queen or even king. We could incorporate this style into a captains bed, I am sure there are more. I will leave it to you to let us know what you think and if you want one. We only build to order so I am hoping that we get another chance to play with this style.



Thursday, December 3, 2009

Paintied away the day

So a lot of the time I show off my husbands handy work on here, this time it's all about the paint, which just happens to be my gig. First though hopefully this picture makes my blabbering on the last post make sense. This is the foot board for the full size bed that will be under the twin size loft bed. It is something new for us and I think we are liking how it is turning out. Now back to the painting. The sections of bead board were painted before he put them into the frame. The one in the background is for the headboard. They are actually two pieces glued together because they will be seen from both sides sooner or later. So to paint them they need two coats on each side. Then they get put into the frame. Then the frame has to be painted, with two coats.
This is a close up of the little feet on the foot board. This was when they only had one coat of paint. In between each coat we sand with at least 400 grit sandpaper, it makes for a smooth finish.

This is the storage unit that will be part of the twin loft bed. It has doors and drawers this is just the cabinet.


We deliver this one on Saturday. More pictures to come tomorrow.



Lost and Found

I lost the digital camera and apparently my will to blog for a couple days. But now it seems all is found. This first picture may be the lamest photo I have yet posted. I think that it is very good that we make our living building furniture and not taking pictures of it. This is of the last beds that we did. These are the drawers that filled up the holes in the last picture. We did these drawers a little different than the ones on the other Captains bed that we did before, we angled the edges of the drawer fronts, and by we I mean my husband it looked great. So if you are ordering a Captian's bed or dresser or anything else we make with drawers on it and you would prefer this style of drawer front just ask. Also a quick note about knobs. We use very simple wooden knobs, they do look nice I think they go well with the simplicity of our furniture, however another reason we do that is to leave the choice up to you. I think you can really change the look of a piece of furniture with the drawer knobs. There are so many choices that you could make to match the rest of your decor or to just have fun. So we leave it to you to express yourself with the knobs, or to just enjoy the simple ones we choose. Ok moving on to our current project. This is something new for us. It is a twin over full bunk bed set in an L. Which we have done of course but the style is new to us. We have not named it yet, we only do that when it is something we will be regularly doing. Sometimes we do something and post pictures and then everyone wants it, and sometimes we only do it once. So we will hold off on a name until we see which way it will go.
These are part of the headboard and foot board. These panels will be in the frame of the other pieces below. I am terrible at describing, and taking pictures, if you are very patient you will get the idea as it comes together.

We are painting these parts before we put them together. We should be putting them together soon and then they will look more recognizable as a bed. So this will be a twin loft with a storage unit built into the end of the loft, and then a full size bed under it in a L. More pictures to come, now that the camera and my will have both been found check back for new pictures.


Sunday, November 22, 2009

further along

Well here it is further along, this was when it was set up to get some measurements. There is a board filling that gap on the finished bed.





Also obviously there are doors on the access hole for the storage area, and the holes are filled with drawers.