oops

We goofed, we do that. Once in a while thankfully not very often but once in a while it does happen. And I hate that it was on this bed. This is a customer who has been waiting. We have three of them who have been very patient and we were so happy to have one done and be moving on to number two. Then we went and goofed it up. When we set this one up it looked wrong but we were in a hurry and didn't see it. But our customer did. That is the great thing about our blog. It lets our customers look over our shoulder and say that is not the way I thought it would be. We would much rather catch something at this point. Especially one like this bed that is being shipped. It would be much harder to fix the problem after we shipped it. Anyway here is the problem, the ladder should be on the end. It is so obvious of course it should be on the end, how could you use the drawer if the ladder was in front of it. I hate feeling stupid. But it does happen. So this week we are making a new headboard with the ladder opening in it. And working on our second bed that is waiting.

Here is something not related to our beds, and not a mistake really. One day this summer my husband decided to make me an oven outside. It was more of an experiment than a final project. He wanted to make sure it will all work out before he makes one out of more permanent materials. This one did work though. I made bread in it, flat bread not like a loaf of bread. We have made pizza and brownies. I love it. It does not make it hot in my house to bake. The one that we make for permanent will have to have fire brick, concrete block will eventually break from the heat. But it was a fun experiment. The kids had fun helping. The only one who was not all that excited was the little dog in the picture. Mack was pretty sure it was a new dog house for him right up until we started the fire. Look how longingly he is looking at it. It's a hard life for a little dog.

Some new ideas

We have a couple new ideas. First one is a bed kit. This is for example the kit for the Ciera Toddler bunk beds. We have it for sale on Etsy and you can order it direct by sending us an email at fhlunsford@msn.com. We could do this for any bed you see on our blog. We can still deliver locally for free, or we can ship it anywhere. It will save you on the price of the bed and if you have some time and a couple tools you can put it together yourself. So if you are interested in a kit for any bed you see here just let us know by sending us an email. You would get all of the wood pieces, drilled, cut, sanded and ready to put together. Instructions and if you are local all the hardware you need. If we are shipping you can get the hardware cheaper locally to you than paying us and paying shipping. Idea number two. Plans for beds. So far we only have the plans for this Ciera style bunk bed set. It is actually a lot of work to get them together but kind of fun too. If you are interested in these, send us an email at fhlunsford@msn.com we will let you know how to order a set. We can either email them to you or send you a disk. They include a list of the things you must purchase, the tools you need to use, the cuts you must make and instructions with pictures to make things a little clearer, hopefully.

So let us know if you are interested in either of those things. Next time I will post some of what is going on for us besides beds.

Just a quick blog today. We are on the run. This is a little toddler bed we did that I love, it has two drawers underneath. It is cool. We have gotten back to busy pretty fast. We had three little beds that got in a loop from before out move. This is the one that was ordered first. It is very good to get it ready to ship out. We still have two more, one is not a Ciera style which is cool. It has seemed like all the toddlers we have done have been Ciera style and all this color for some reason. So we have one comming up that is neither a Ciera style or this color. It is a Jeffery and it will be early american. Pictures of it stained will be next.

The kids have started school now so we are getting into a normal working routine again. We love the quiet but it is strange when they are all gone.

Back to work

No pictures today, just me typing on some one elses computer.

We are back to work. Summer was a bit slow and crazy so far. With our move sort of dominating things. Have you ever done something and then just looked back and thought wow that was terrible? That is how our move ended up being. Somehow it just did not go the way we thought it would when we started, but everything does come to an end, both good and bad things. We are getting used to the rhythm of life with a generator. When it runs we do everything, laundry, charge batteries for the lights, charge cell phones, vacuum, and cut the kids hair. We are hoping to get regular power soon for the wood shop. We are going to sell a car I think, anyone want to buy a Chevy Lumina?

When things get slow you start thinking maybe we should do something else. I have to say though that I am very glad that things are picking up. Once you find something you love to do it is hard to think of giving it up. I do love working with my husband at home. I love that when I am done with my work I can look at something visible and see what I have done. It is great to see a nice shiny new bed and know that we did that with our own hands.

The summer was not a waste though, we have had a lot of time with the kids and that is never a waste of time. Hopefully I will get some pictures up next time from my own computer. I have a great picture from a customer in Texas. The amazing part for us of the picture is how they got the whole bed in the picture, we tried to get decent pictures in the room and could not. So I have to post it just to show off her talent.

Finally moved

We can now say we live here, it is really nice to be done moving! We put a lot of stuff into storage because obviously all of us and our stuff would not fit in this. But it is all working out ok. We now have a generator so we are able to use all of our tools and we can build stuff which is good because that is how we support our extravagant life style. It has been so long since I blogged here are some things we did that I did not have time to post. Things were so crazy but now we are hoping to get back to our simple little life that we have come to enjoy. First this is the first real platform bed that we have done. A school ordered two of them. Then we delivered them and they ordered two more. Then they told us they want two more. We like that. And we liked how the beds turned out.

This little bed deserves it's own post maybe I will get to it. But the short version of the story is that a long time ago a customer sent us an email saying they wanted us to build them a bed, but they did not know what yet. We put them on our schedule. Then due to them moving and us moving and our fire and on and on it took some time. Eventually they sent us a picture of what they had in mind. This is the end result. We loved it. It is sort of a short Clairamy. The stairs are also different from any we have done before.

Right now we are finishing up our work shop, and some toddler bunk beds and getting ready to build some book cases that a customer designed. I am looking fore ward to those. More to come about our off grid life, and what we are working on.

Mahogany

This is a little toddler bed we did some time back, it turned out so good I almost wanted to have little ones again to sleep in it so I could justify keeping it for ourselves. This color is called Bombay mahogany. This is a twin over full in the Ciera style this color is red mahogany. It turned out really cool as well.

I think it is my favorite storage cabinet we have done to date.

I would like to say that is why I put the same picture of it up twice, but no I was just distracted. It happens.

In other news, we have mostly moved. I guess you could say we are living "off grid" . It sounds much better to put it that way than to say that the power company changed their story and now power will be twice what we thought it would. So now we will have to save a little longer to get it hooked up. For now we are working at my brother's house where there is power, but soon we are thinking we will buy a generator for our power tools and then we can be self sufficient. I will keep you updated.

Another great idea

Ok, I will get to the great idea in a minute. This is a triple bunk bed. This one happens to be the James style, and it is not completely set up. They were going to paint it themselves but her husband was not home so we set it up this much so that it would be easier for them to figure out. The slats are not on any of the beds and the safety rail is not on the one bunk. So you will have to use your imagination to see it finished. Any you will need to try hard to be more imaginative than this mom was.

She also had the problem to solve of three kids and one room. In this case girls. This room is even smaller than the one with the three loft beds of the previous post. So the triple bunk was the only way to go, and the James was a good choice because the ladder is built in so it will not take up more floor space. Notice the yellow on the walls? That is not paint it is paper. She bought a huge roll of paper from a teacher supply store and she puts it on the wall and her little artist get to decorate all they want. When it gets too full or they are tired of their masterpieces she simply changes the paper. I love that idea. I have one in particular that is a little artist. He draws on everything anyway so what a cool idea to make it ok to draw on the wall.

Another thing that makes her the coolest mom in the world is that each little girl got to pick the color of their own bed. See what I mean about needing your imagination to see it finished. How cool is that?

Up next a tail of two mahogany's.