Sleigh bed headboard bench

 
I've had this headboard and footboard to a sleigh bed in my shed for some time. It's MDF, so it won't be water friendly and I knew I wouldn't be able to fully sand it down to paint it, but I decided to go ahead and turn it into a bench for my front porch.

I cut 16" off each side of the footboard to make the sides, but they didn't match up very well because of the slope of the frames. I decided to cut an angle at the top of the footboard pieces to fit the slope of the headboard better and then I could cut the bottom of the side pieces accordingly.
I ended up taping a ruler to the bottom leg...

Then I was able to trace the angle on a piece of paper...

Then I could draw the angle at the top of the side pieces to cut out with my jig saw...

Once they were cut, I could see where the bottom piece needed to be cut to fit the headboard. This made my bench even narrower than the anticipated 16", but there wasn't much I could do at that point.
Here it is with the pieces matched up, but not screwed in yet.

 

 I drilled three holes on the foot board pieces with my Kreg Jig. I attached the bottom of the foot board to the headboard, but left the top ones unscrewed, so I could fiddle with them after the frame was inside.

Next, I needed to build a frame. I probably should have just measured it a million times and created the frame before attaching it, but I was worried about getting the measurements wrong, so I just marked and cut the exact lengths as I went. I started with a 2x4 along the back of the headboard.

Then I cut and attached the side pieces (and two middle ones) leaving room for a 2x4 to go across the front.

I used a level and a stack of scrap wood to hold the front 2z4 piece while I drilled it in place.

Then I was able to move the top of the side pieces to a place where I could drill them into the headboard.

 And drill the side of the frame into the side of the bench

 I wanted to paint the bench black and have the seat be a stained color, so I dragged this outside and lightly sanded and wiped it down with a wet rag.

 I used my HVLP sprayer to paint it. I started with a coat of gray primer.

 

 Then I sanded it and did another coat of primer.

I ended with 2 coats of black semi gloss (sanding in between--sanding really does make a huge difference). I bought 3-1x4x10s to cut for the seat and used a scrap 1/4" piece of plywood to help space them. I was literally one slat short and luckily found a scrap piece that would work at the end so I didn't have to go out and buy another board.

 Once I had all the slats cut, I took them off to stain them. I like to put my hand in a ziploc bag and then put an old sock over it to rub the stain on the wood.

 I let them dry on an old vinyl tablecloth. Once they were dry, I flipped them over and stained the other side. The nice things about the bag is I can just roll the bag and sock off my hand so they are inside out and then the sock doesn't dry out right away before you use it again.

Tip: If you get stain on your hands or even on your clothes, you can use cooking oil (vegetable, canola, sunflower, etc.) to get it off. Since it's oil based, water doesn't do much to help you clean up.

I put the pieces back on and used my finishing nail gun to attach the pieces in the front and back.

I like the finished piece, but it looks a little squatty on my front porch. If I make another headboard/footboard bench, I think I'll make the sides at least 18" long.

Once the 4th weekend is over, I plan on coating it with a few coats of outdoor varnish.

Thanks for stopping by!

Square Wainscotting Tunnel Below Stairs

The wall beneath my stairs is boring no more! Using some maple and birch 1/4" plywood that I ripped down to to 3" strips, I created a square wainscoting pattern in the little tunnel going into the kitchen.

Here are some before shots. After putting wainscoting on the stairs, restaining the banister, and painting the spindles, the wall beneath the stairs looked a little bare.

Here's a shot of the "tunnel"

I started by making a template of a runner by taping paper to the wall.

 

Then I measured 3"down from each step to make a diagonal line.

I traced the template onto a massive sheet of Maple 1/4" plywood and cut it out with a jigsaw.

I drilled holes near the corners to help in turning the saw.

All cut out!

Then I nailed it in place so I could start figuring out the placement of the vertical pieces.

I wanted everything to be outlined, so I put down some boards on top of the baseboard and then put the edge board up meeting the crown at the top.

I wanted to get as many long pieces from my sheet of Maple as possible. I used masking tape to mark my 3" pieces the keep the wood from splintering. (Once I ran out of maple, I ripped some birch plywood for some of the horizontal pieces and they splintered a little even with tape--the maple cut way nicer)

I put a piece at the end of the wall and at the top. Then I was able to evenly divide the space for the other three pieces and come up with a base measurement for the width of the sqaures.

 

Then I was able to start cutting smaller pieces and put in the horizontal pieces. In order to place them evenly, I wasn't able to have them be exact squares, but they are pretty close.

I moved to frame the area in the center.

And the area next to the closet door. There were different widths on each side, but I made the height the same as the height of the squares on the opposite wall,so there would be some symmetry.

I used my contour gauge to cut the shapes of molding where needed.

I sunk any stray nail holes and used wood filler to fill all holes. I even used an old gift card to smooth over some cracks.

After sanding all the dried filler till it was smooth, I started taping the inside of the squares so I could caulk each individual square.

(Yeah, it was great fun)

Two coats of primer (I used three on the wall by the door)

Three to four coats of semi-gloss bright white.

I like how well it blends into my faux columns