What have we been up to?

Well, a lot actually, of course we still build beds, but we have added a few new tricks as well. We are still taking orders to sell directly and to do custom work. But we also build furniture for a small store in Fredericktown, MO called Reggie's Store. These are some of the things we have made for them.
I love these little Islands/bar tables. They are awsome. For the store we make them fairly standard as to size and color and you can go there today and buy one or look at them. But we can custom build them to any size and change the tile and color to what you are looking for.
I apparently like them so much that I put the picture in twice. I would like to say I'm just out of practice but we all know that is not true. I have done this several other times as well. These lovely pictures were taken at Reggie's store in fact.

This is one of the coolest things we have done for them, this is a tv stand or entertainment center. The wolves are metal signs. There are several other's to choose from. The next one we make will be with John Wayne. Also they don't have to have anything on the doors, infact the doors can be left off entirely. I think this one is sold, but there are others there right now, or we can make one just for you in any color and the size you want. Like everything we build they are solid wood, in this case cabinet grade plywood. Never ever particle board.

This may be my favorite thing ever. It is an old fashioned pie safe. We put punched tin in the doors. It was very fun. This one and one other are available now at Reggie's. We would love to play more with the punched tin. I think it could be cool for a wine rack with a grape motif.

Of course we have done more than that but it may take time to catch up. Next post I will try to put up some more of the bar tables we have done for the store. They are fun to do and solid wood so they should last. I will also catch up on some of the other stuff, like fires, construction at our house and other things. And of course all the bed styles are still available. The plans for the Ciera toddler beds are available and we almost have plans for Jeffery style twin bunks ready to go. If you would like information about anything you see here, send us an email at fhlunsford@msn.com

Little ladders

Today I put stain on these three ladders for toddler bunk beds. When I was done I looked at them and it made me laugh, not out loud laughing like crazy people do walking down the street all by themselves and their invisivle friend tells a good joke. The internal laugh like sane people do when they are alone. and something amuses them.

When we paint or stain ladders we put the little leg things on th bottom so they will stand alone and we can get all the surfaces at once. One of the many good ideas my husband had. I always think it is a little funny to see a ladder standing alone in the middle of a room, going nowhere. But three of them was so funny that I had to go get the camera and take a picture and share.

I think they look like some kind of bizare linup.

In case you are wondering the colors are from left to right, red oak, early american, and ebony.

I love putting the stain on the furniture. When I looked at them thismorning stackd together they looked like lumber, now they look like furniture standing at attention. How cool is that.

Toddler bunk bed plans

so I have mentioned before we have the plans to build some of the toddler bunk beds. We did this for a couple reasons. One it was fun. And also we figure that people who have two children small enough to sleep in toddler size bunk beds are probably not amoung the most wealthy in the world. We know we have four and kids are an expensive hobby. Especially when they need things like diapers and they go through five or six outfits each day.

We do build the beds, we do ship the beds but the shipping is steep, almost as much as the beds. So we made the plans so that you can either build them yourself if you are handy and have the tools. Or you can find a local woodworker to pay to build them. Or you could find someone that will work for beer, food, clean clothes or just because they think their grandkids/neices/nefiews are the cutest things in the world and they would do anything for them. I suggest working the cute kids angle just as often as you can. Kids really do have a shelf life when it comes to cute, I say get the most out of it before they turn into sullen teen agers.

The plans are $15.00. They can either be emailed to you or sent on a disk in the mail. They are written on oppen office.org software. They have pictures and step by step directions. Also a materials list and a cut list.

Right now we only have the Ciera style plans finished. We are working on the Jeffery right now. If you want to order a set you can send me an email at fhlunsford@msn.com. I can either get you our Paypal information or give you our address to mail you the disk.

Random thoughts

So it has been a while since my last post, we were switching from satalite internet to dial up. I know it is a step backwards in the technology world but what can I say that is how we role. So that makes for some new blogging rules, well actually only one that I can think of right now which is good because I hate rules anyway. So I will probably only put up one photo per blog, notice how I changed that from a rule to probably. I told you I hate rules.

So a lot happens in the amount of time since I last blogged. This picture is one of the things that has happened for us. That used to be my paint shop. In the fall we had a storm with big bad wind. The paint shop went airborn. This picture was actually after we pulled it down it was further up in the tree. It is a long story and not very fun but sufice it to say it was an interesting night for us.

I have to say I was loving having my own space. I was all set up and in a groove and now I am back to painting and staining wherever there is room and time. Most of the time we have been trading off in his woodshop. He builds some stuff and then it get's stained or painted. This does work, but it slows things down because he can not cut or sand while painting or staining is going on. So we feel like we are crawling through orders. But we are getting better at it and it won't be forever. Eventually we will work something else out.

Lately we have been working on toddler size bunk beds. We got backed up with orders and we are playing catch up. We have two new styles, the Jeffery and the Jeremy. I will put them up next time. They are pretty cute.

Also I am going to be adding a page for the plans for the toddler bunk beds. We have the ones for the Ciera ready now, and we are working on the Jeffery. I am not sure if we will do the Jeremy or not. The arch is a little hard to explain how to do. I think it is one of those things that is in his head and it might be hard to get out.

Mystery shopping

This is the Jeremy in English Chestnut. I always like to state the color in the post, sometimes it helps people get an idea what color they want. I think it turned out pretty good. Now to the title of the post, we went to a furniture store the other day. I will not kid you this is not something we have done often in our life. The most time we time we spent in one was when I was in labor with our first son, we were buying a brand new couch. Unusual for us, most of our furniture has been hand me down or second hand. I can tell you that a furniture store is not a bad place to be in labor, it is not hard to find a comfortable place to sit out a contraction. It amazes me how the light makes the color completely different.

Any way about our adventure to the furniture store. We went in there to look at kids bed, bunk beds. Not to buy one but to see if we are way off on pricing. The prices have long since left my mind, I am not good at numbers. I am not the one to ask how much we paid for our first car, or the one we have now for that matter, they leave my head almost instantly. But they only had one style of kids furniture to offer, that was it. The one price that did strike me is that if you bought bunk beds you had to pay $70 if you wanted a ladder. Who would buy a set of bunk beds for the kids and not need a ladder.

Up next is a Jeremy set of bunk beds that comes apart, with stairs and it is painted Fragrant Jasmine. I can tell you for sure that the paint smells the same as any other.

Dressers

So as a reminder that the site is only "mostly" beds. Here are some dressers we have made, some in the past and some recently. This is one with four drawers. They are made of solid wood. This particular color is not available anymore because for some reason Minwax feels the need to change the colors from time to time. This is our basic style. This is one that was built in to a loft bed. And it is a little different style. We can do this style with the bead board as a stand alone dresser with four or five drawers as well. It is a little more than the one above. It matches the Clair style bed frame really well too. This color is called Pickled Oak.

This last one is a five drawer. The color is English Chestnut. I loved this color. We did a set of Jeremy bunk beds that matched it. I will post some pictures of them next. It is a great color.

Lately, we have felt like we were living in one of those post apocalyptic movies where the machines rebel. It seems like everything mechanical we have has broken down. But maybe we have them all back in line now. In the last few weeks my poor husband has fixed the hot water heater, which meant tearing the cupboards in our travel trailer apart because whoever put it in put the access to the element facing the wrong way. He has fixed the generator, repeatedly, I think that one is going to hold for a while now. And just about completely rebuilt the front end of our van. He is tired of machines at this point and would rather stick to working with wood.

Financing

I just was looking at the newspaper add for a furniture store locally that was advertising Free financing. I read the fine print. If you are late on a payment or don't pay it off in 12 months you have to pay 25% interest from the day you bought it. That seems a little bit deceptive to me. So we have started to finance, (yes I do know how to spell it, I just don't know how to edit the page now that I posted it). Here is the deal, we don't want to make more money than we do making the beds. We will not charge interest, there are no penalties. It's just that we do realize that it is hard for many people to come up with cash to buy anything. Honestly if we were trying to buy beds for our kids from us it may not happen if we had to have cash. And we don't use credit cards, it seems we might not be the only ones in the world who are tired of giving money to the credit card companies. So if you are interested in financing your purchase click on the misspelled page to the left and take a look at the terms, if you have any questions let us know.