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Personal project / Realised
Bed Frame
A bed frame of my own design, built from solid oak, designed, modelled and constructed independently, end to end.
A bed frame of my own design, built from solid oak, designed, modelled and constructed independently, end to end.
Overview
Most of what I design outside school projects starts the same way: something is missing in my own home, so I design it myself. This bed frame is one of those, a new frame from a shop would have cost more than building one, and would have solved none of the actual problem, which was storage. I live in a small student house, so storage inside the bed itself was a must, not a nice-to-have.
The frame holds four hollow bays sized to fit IKEA HJÄRPA baskets exactly, two on each side, plus a small built-in bookcase in the footboard for books and display items. It's kept deliberately low, so it reads as floating rather than filling up the room, while solid oak keeps it sturdy enough for daily use. Everything except the footboard bookcase is screwed rather than glued, so the whole thing can be taken apart again when I eventually move out.
That screwed-not-glued choice is design-for-disassembly, not an afterthought: solid oak was picked so the frame lasts, and it's built to come apart cleanly rather than get thrown out when student housing changes again.
The oak is left showing its own grain rather than painted or veneered over, so the material itself does the talking instead of a finish hiding what it's made of.
A note on these images
The renders below are generated directly from the final CAD model used to build the frame. Photos of the finished, built piece are on the way and will replace or join these once they're in.
Process
The sketches below weren't a straight line from idea to final form, basket sizing, the footboard shelf and the overall proportions were all being worked out at the same time rather than one after another. What held it together was one fixed constraint: every hollow bay had to fit an IKEA HJÄRPA basket exactly, so the storage decided the frame rather than the other way around.
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01, Storage first, frame second
Storage was the actual brief, not an afterthought, a small student house meant storage inside the bed itself was a must. The frame holds four hollow bays, two on each side, sized to fit IKEA HJÄRPA baskets exactly rather than roughly. Bedding and clothes I don't reach for often live in there instead of needing a wardrobe. A small built-in bookcase in the footboard adds a fifth spot, for books and the odd display item, without needing a separate piece of furniture in a room with no space for one.
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02, Kept low, on purpose
I wanted the bed to sit low, less about the look itself and more about keeping a small room from feeling fuller than it already was. The frame reads as if it's floating rather than resting fully on the floor, without giving up the strength solid oak beams need to actually carry a mattress and four loaded baskets.
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03, Material chosen for the long run
Solid oak, mainly because a bed actually needs to hold up, slept in every night, sat on, leaned against, and I wanted something that would still be sturdy in years rather than the first thing to start sagging. The whole frame is cut from two standard-size oak sheet panels, sized so the layout wastes as little material as possible.
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04, Screwed, not glued
Everything except the footboard bookcase, which is bonded, is screwed straight into the base frame rather than joined permanently. That was deliberate: student housing is temporary, and screws mean the whole bed can be taken apart and moved without cutting anything apart, while still going straight into the load-bearing frame so it keeps the sturdiness a bed actually needs. The one change from the CAD model to the built piece was the height, it read a little taller in person than I wanted, so I brought it down slightly during the build.
Detail
Two spots on the storage bay worth a closer look, click a marker.
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HJÄRPA basket — exact fit
This bay is sized to fit an IKEA HJÄRPA basket exactly, not roughly.
Storage decided the frame's dimensions, not the other way around.
Cut for custom storage bins
This cut, together with its twin on the other side, was designed to hold customisable storage inserts, like a bin for a power strip or a water bottle.
It reads as a handle, but the real reason it's there is storage.
Gallery
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