Headboard Progress

Earlier last month I went up to Vermont where I got to see the first of my beautiful headboards being handmade!  These headboards are to be the first examples of my furniture line, designed for those of us who are looking for well made, beautiful furniture that isn't stuffy or prohibitively expensive.

Without giving away TOO much and spoiling the surprise, I wanted to share the amazing process that turns one rough 4x10 into a beautiful headboard frame.

The painting and upholstering steps are next so hopefully I'll have some finished products by the end of 2011!

Here are the very rough boards which will soon become beautiful headboard frames!  I had a lot of fun at the lumberyard learning how to pick the best piece of lumber, but I think the man, who was forced to show me just about every piece of wood they had, was pretty glad to see me finally go.

 This machine planes the wood down so that it's smooth and flat.

 The wood had to be passed through multiple times to get rid of all the roughness, which you can see here.

 Next, the smooth piece of wood was cut into long pieces that were roughly the size of the two sides and top of the headboard frame

 Tangent: this is where all the sawdust in the workroom goes for recycling.  I thought it was actually kind of beautiful!

 Finally, a couple of detail shots showing the craftsmanship on a couple of the headboards.  But no final pictures...yet!!