Noah's Bed

A couple of months ago, I posted about the first Gardenqub to go up.
Well this project also included a few minor extras, such as the rebuilding of a large outdoor decking area and garden shed renovation. We took it all in our stride and had fun doing it.

What this post is about is the nice kickback I got from this project in the form of some weathered decking timbers. and heaps of them! Various lengths, but all 37mm x 60mm.

As soon as I saw them I already imagined some cool projects using them. I just can't help it.
It must be something about old timber that gets my creative juices flowing.

Now I'm am no famous carpententer of any repute what so ever, but I do love to meddle in sharp high velocity power tools,.. some fire and explosions too,..  ...  .  but not out of control,..  ...    . you know?.

So I set to work the last week or so to build a new bed for my son Noah.
The biggest task, especially if you take into account the cleaning up afterwards, is the sanding of the boards.
This was the trigger for me to purchase my first ever belt sander.
This really gave me the feeling of scraping back the years of age off each piece allowing me to get the effect I wanted out of every piece.

My first design I abandoned before long, when I realised it just didn't look right.
Back to the computer to make some quick changes and this what resulted.

Noah's bed

I'm into simple modern designs. Often they are the easiest to build as well, provided you have the right tools. For some years now I have been working most of my designs in laser cut steel, especially barbecues and outdoor fire features such as firepits. The medium is amazingly versatile and I have a lot of fun designing with it, but timber is somehow everything that steel is not. It had life - and retains the life force of nature, long gone from the earth and circulating now within humanity. This wood has been reincarnated again as a unique piece of art from a father to a son.

Bed end

Here is a close up of the bed end. Modern design is all about attention to detail I believe, and it is just these seemingly over-simple designs that capture this style the best.
But the reclaimed timber refuses to totaly submit to the tight geometry of the fashion. A warp creeps in here, a knot comes loose there. Ah, that is part of the pleasure working with this material.

Here is a shot under construction in my studio.

Yagoona Studio

Love to read in bed?

I love to read in bed!
I has developed into such a habit that unless I am dog tired, it feels strange to not read a few pages of something or other before I doze off.

Some years ago an idea struck me to solve a problem I am sure I shared with many others that love to read in bed.I call it "readers arm". The discomfort from holding your book up over your head in bed.
Switching arms, lying on your side or holding the book with both arms all solve the discomfort till the next page turn, but I found that I would stop reading not because I felt like it, but because my arm would be sore. This would be particularly bad if I was reading a fat hardcover book.

I remember while living in Sydney, during winter our house was not centrally heated, so to stay warm in bed, you had to get right under your doona. This would add a new difficulty to reading in bed.

It was about 9 years ago I began to experiment with ideas to solve this problem.
Since then I have used a string of prototypes that I had made. They all hovered around the same concept. A clear sheet of plexiglass that is suspended over your head while lying in bed.

So here I wanted to share with you my latest unit. This is alread a few year old and works exceedingly well, but still does not cut it with regard to styling.

 I loaned it to my younger son while he was at home sick for a few days. The IKEA lamp hanging off the horizontal arm was his idea which is a pretty good improvement.

 This is what it looks like from underneath. Zak has it around the other way here. Normally the horizontal bar holding up the clear surface is at the top side instead of the bottom as shown here.
The height of the book can be adjusted so that it is easy to change the page, or even lower if the text is small.

The previous unit I built was out of aluminum and was quite flimsy. It would bend and buckle under the weight of a heavy book. But this latest prototype is brutally strong. It can handle not only the heaviest of books that I read, but the extra weight of a fat dictionary which I like to keep at hand while reading.

I find that I simply read under it until I doze off.
Its a snap to lift the book off and turn the page, but best of all, your arms are down and under the sheets almost all the time.

It is on coasters so I can easily push it away if needed, but I have gotten used to its presence above my head, and don't hit it anymore when getting up in the morning.

So my next challenge is to make it look cool.