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How to Make Solid Wood Bed Frames Affordable: Use Cut-Offs from Other Furniture Businesses

Tuft & Needle's Wood Frame Bed may have superhero roots

By Rain Noe - October 31, 2018

in Furniture Design

Speaking of making things out of cut-offs:

For many of us, the ideal material for a bed frame is solid wood. But solid wood beds, with their long rails and headboards, are expensive, requiring long, wide, defect-free pieces of wood to build them out of.

Hence Tuft & Needle creates their Wood Frame Bed largely from walnut cut-offs salvaged from furniture businesses.

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They're able to laminate the cut-offs together and still see a cost savings, passing that on to the consumer (the beds run $995 to $1,195). Here's what the beds look like:

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The aesthetic takes some getting used to, but I'd vastly prefer one of these to a bed made from particle board and veneer. It is interesting that fingerjoints are only visible on the legs, and that the pieces comprising the rails are butt-jointed; how do you reckon they achieved the requisite beam strength, perhaps there's one long solid piece on the unseen insides?

In any case, here the company explains what they're going for:

We always consider sustainability in the materials we choose. When we learned that typically 40-60% of lumber is discarded in hardwood manufacturing, we saw an opportunity to repurpose this cast-off lumber.

This extra walnut is perfectly fine in quality, but is too short to be useful in most furniture. We worked with our manufacturer to rejoin the discarded material to make new board lengths of patchwork lumber then used it wherever we could. We supplemented the rest of the needed materials with new hardwood, so each individual frame is truly unique.

Here's a video highlighting the design and materials choice:

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After seeing the video: Is it just me, or does Tuft & Needle designer Levi Christiansen…

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…look like Captain America and Thor had a baby?

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I can't be the only one who's seeing this.

"We know you want a solid walnut bed, son, but it's a little too expensive for us to afford right now….You'll understand when you're older."

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Kelly Fait

6 years ago

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My son, (designer) Levi Christiansen, sent this link to me this morning and I can't stop laughing! Bwahaha!

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Kelly Fait

6 years ago

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My son, designer Levi Christiansen, sent me this article... I cant. stop. laughing!

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Rich Eng

6 years ago

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it looks like the finger joints on the rails run vertically. so you see them on the top edge, not the face.

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- Z Hulett
  
  Rich Eng
  
  6 years ago
  
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  I agree, the rails do have finger joints that run vertically. Also, a couple of the pictures show some horizontal joints as well. It looks like on the 7th picture down that the lower portion of the rail had a vertical joint, and a long piece was joined to that on top.
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