This was an interesting first for us… A bed-swing made entirely from reclaimed wood, hand jointed and to be hung from thick rope on the client’s porch.
The story beings in two places.
First, in Gardner, Kansas we reclaimed some discarded maple timbers in January of 2016. The timbers were dried and then re-sawn when the project began.
The second location is Moran, Kansas where a good friend and mentor, was tearing down his barn in 2015. We were able to salvage some wood, de-nail and store for future use.
Starting with the timbers we began to construct the base frame for the bed swing. We wanted to use lap-joints for strength and aesthetic appeal. Interestingly when we sawed into the wood, we discovered the unique markings of the ambrosia beetle. The coloring left behind by this little critter gave the wood a very unique appearance that we wanted to capture in the finished piece.
While the frame was clamped up, we started dimensioning the barn wood that we would need. We liked the contrast that the two different woods provided and devised a way to incorporate this into the design.
All of the pieces were hand-joined using a variety of techniques including floating tenons.
The bed will be suspended from one-inch rope, but we wanted to make sure that the rope wouldn’t fray over time so we chamfered the edges of the holes with a router.
All that was left to do was test fit the whole thing together, make sure the cushions still fit and apply our final finish to help seal the wood. We also added a couple cup-holders to assist with those cool beverages.
Below is a shot of the finished swing, hanging on the owner’s porch. This swing will hopefully bring its new owners years of enjoyment as they sip cool beverages on their porch during the hot summer months.
