The next project…
So with the bench finished, I had a new project already lined up.
It’s probably hard to tell, but it’s a sidecar cot (used for cosleeping with newborns so that 3am feedings are slightly less work). We’re not expecting, but my sister is and it’s at xmas so that’s a fairly natural time for gifts. The design is simple enough – a drawer at the bottom for bedding and the like, and a frame (made from walnut) rising up from that, with a steamed curve at the side facing the bed to cut down on odd bruising when parents whack their faces into it at 3am, a mortice in the frame to attach two platforms with, one of which has two slats that extend under the mattress to stabilise the cot even more, and the other of which (the top one if you’re feeling kind) has the mattress and newborn on top of it. I’ve left out the surrounding slats from that sketch to make it easier to draw, but they’re just under two inches wide, made from ash, and have two inches – no more – of a gap between them (there are guidelines and recommendations for this sort of thing for safety reasons, they vary from place to place but basic stuff like that is reasonably consistent so I’m sticking to it). I’ve left out the slats in the platforms as well, just because as a sketch artist, I’m a pretty decent software engineer.
The frame should be made from walnut, the slats from ash and the drawer will be poplar with a cedar base to keep away moths 😀 and it’ll be finished with shellac and milk paint for the drawer, all safe for being chewed on. I doubt it’ll ever be chewed on, but hey, newborns, allergies, etc, etc, etc, so why not. Besides, I like shellac and milk paint, I think they’re better finishes than most modern latex-based paints for this kind of thing (I wouldn’t paint the shed with them, but I don’t think of the shed as being pretty up close).
Most of the dimensions in the notes got a bit tweaked after this to fit into the space this will be going into, but the only major change to the design is to have the drawer oriented so it pulls out 90 degrees to the direction in the design, so instead of pulling out away from the bed, it pulls out parallel to it (to avoid being blocked by an inconvenient wall). There are a few other things I’d like to try with this if it doesn’t all go horribly wrong over the next few weeks, but I can get to those later. This is enough of a challange to be getting on with for now.