Headboard 1.0 – First Tier

Construction of the headboard continues.  After getting the raised panel wainscot to size, I now could begin construction of the substructure that will hold the raised panels and give us the depth for our top shelf and side shelving.  We have long range plans of elevating our king size bed 6” +/- off the ground so I needed to build a 6” base.  After picking up a couple sheets of 1/2” B/C plywood from my local home center I was ready to begin rough sawing the plywood.

As you can see below I basically ripped a (2) lengths of 1/2” plywood to 5-1/2” in width.  These rips are then cut to the length of the raised panel frame and assembled with glue and brads to create the ladder frame you see below.  I forget the exact dimension but I think the overall base is about 8-3/4” deep, 89-1/4” wide, and 6” high with the 1/2” plywood top.

With the ladder frame complete I rip a 1/2” plywood top that is the dimension of the base and glue and tack it down with brads to get a finish product like you see below.

With the headboard base complete it was time to decide how to build the sub-frame.  I do not have a lot of the photos from the assembly but it’s pretty self explanatory to see what I did by seeing the photos of the finished product.  Essentially, I needed a sub frame that can bolt to the base and is exactly the same height as one of the raised panel frames which is 26-1/4” high.  If you look in the photo below I essentially built a ladder frame to save on materials and keep the weight down.  All of the plywood is 1/2” thick and the brown pieces of horizontal blocking are the off rips of raised panels that I cut off in the Headboard 0.0 post.  The off-rips happened to be 3/4” thick by 2-1/2” wide and provided great stability as well as an anchoring point for some bolts as you will see in a later photo.

So the ladder frame is 3/4” less is width than the base.  This was done so the first raised panel frame, which is also 3/4” thick, can rest on the base.  So the end pieces are 8” wide plywood that is 26-1/4” high.  the long horizontal plywood strips are 2-1/2” long.  The horizontal blocking was put in at the center of the panel and directly behind the intermediate stiles of the raised panel.  I also added (2) more vertical panels (not in the photo above) that were 7” wide and 26-1/4” high for some added stiffness, which also fall directly behind the intermediate stiles of the raised panel.  With the lower level sub-frame complete, it was time to attach the base to the sub frame.

I clamped the raised panel frame onto the sub-frame and then set the whole assemble on the base.  I lined up everything flush with base and clamped the sub-frame to the base and drilled 5/16” holes for some 5/16” x 2” hex bolts that I had on hand.  I bolted this assembly so I could see how sturdy the bolted ladder frame would be, and if this worked this would be how I attach the upper sub-frame to the lower sub-frame.  Fortunately it worked.  I ended up using 8 bolts.  2 on the ends and middle and a single bolt at the intermediate blocking.

Below is another view of the completed base and lower sub frame with the lower raised panel attached. The first tier is complete and now I am ready to shift my focus to the trim piece that will go between the lower and upper raised panel.  This trim piece will provide a natural break between the two panels and I think creates a more visually appealing line/break than just having the two panels butt tight together.

I decided on a simple piece of 1x with a 1/4 round profile routed into the edge of the square stock.  In order to see how this would look I temporarily attached some end trim to the lower panel and screwed the trim piece to the lower panel frame.  To get the full effect I lifted the upper raised panel frame into the approximate position to get a flavor for the finished condition.

Am angled view below.

With the lower tier complete the next step is to begin to work through the upper tier which needs to have some shelving on the sides, but that will be for another post.