New Woodworking Project - Pencil Post Bed

My first blog posting coincides with the start of a new woodworking project - building a pencil post bed out of cherry for my daughter's room that doubles as our guest room. I've chosen her room to be an experiment in colonial style furniture. My hope over the next couple of years is to build out additonal furniture pieces in various colonial styles including Queen Anne and perhaps some Shaker influenced pieces. So far my grand plan is to have a Queen Anne high boy, a blanket chest, and 2 night stands. I'd also like to make a small desk in the Queen Anne style.

Over the past year I've created a lot of furniture for the house. All of it to date has been out of oak and primarily in the Craftsman style. I designed a couple of the pieces for the master bedroom to match elements of the headboard of the bed in the master bedroom and as such don't specifically follow any particular style.

Over the past 14 months I've been able to complete the following projects:

1. Finished the dresser for the master bedroom that I started in Washington (my own design).
2. Built matching nightstands (my own design)
3. Built a desk - Craftsman style for my son. This was copied from a picture I found on the Internet at a high end Craftsman furniture store.
4. Built two bow armed Morris chairs and matching ottomans based off the American Furniture Design pattern.
5. Designed and built a couch that utilizing the Morris chair design then augmented with my own concept to make it into a couch. 

I hadn't planned on making the pencil post bed for at least another 8 months or so but my dad called and said there is a good chance my stepmother and himself may be stopping by at the end of May. Since January I've been doing a ton more progamming in the evenings and weekends on a new product we are building at work. Thus if I'm going to have a hope and prayer of getting the bed done I figured I had better start now.

Friday's task was to buy the 12/4 cherry lumber that I'd need for the posts and rails. I had hoped to do the rails out of 10/4 since it was a little cheaper but alas the lumber yard did not have any. When I did my lumber budget estimate on Thursday night I had figured the minimal amount to be ~$300  (exact board footage) with a more likely scenario of closer to $350. Unfortunately the lumber yard was out of 10/4 Cherry and only had about a dozen 12/4 boards in total to choose from. Thankfully my wife didn't blow her stack when she found out I had spent a little over $400 on the lumber. Before I left for the lumber yard, I did a quick browse at some measured drawings for the high boy I'd like to create so that most of the "waste" 12/4 stock from this project should be enough lumber to make the cabriole legs and thicker mouldings.

Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow to post some pictures and narrative of the first day of woodworking on the project.