Here’s a wall bed that my wife and I finished last week. We ramped it up a notch and did it in the style of an armoire to further disguise the fact that it was actually a bed.

The necessity for the Murphy wall bed came from the fact that my wife’s mother moved in with us a few months ago. In addition to wanting to give her a place for privacy when she has visitors we also wanted to give her a place where she could enjoy the surroundings of some of her own furniture. We decided to turn the bedroom just down the hall from her own bedroom into a sitting room for her. Since we also wanted to retain the option for guests sleeping over a wall bed was the perfect choice. And it is!

The panels are made with Oak plywood and the cabinet style frame work is all done in solid Oak. It’s about 80″ tall and 60″ wide. The stain and finish are environmentally friendly products from Sasco. The Sansin stain and Sasdura, the urethane finish, are both water-based, low VOC and no odour. Not only did they dry in record time and give a great looking finish but with no odour they were a dream to work with.

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This is a bowl that I turned for the Nova Woodturners’ Guild Annual Fun Turn. Each year we are given a block of wood for this event, usually 6″ X 6″ X 3″. However, this year the block was 8″X8″X3″. We can turn anything we want. The only criteria is that we have fun. This project certainly fit the criteria because it sure was fun.

The bowl is made of Maple and it is approximately two and a half inches tall and just over seven inches in diameter. After turning it was carved and then burnt. Yes, burnt. I took a propane torch to it (this is where the fun really began ) and charred the whole thing except for the center bowl.

I was really surprised at how hard this was to do. I expected that the wood would go up in flames but it didn’t. I really had to keep the torch on it for a long time to get the charring that I wanted. You can see in the following photos where the flame didn’t char between a lot of the carved grooves. This worked in my favour, giving a neat effect.

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Here’s a Southwest style pot that I made a couple of days ago. It is made of spalted Sugar Maple and it’s about 9 inches in diameter at it’s widest and about 6 inches tall.

This is a beautifully figured piece of spalted wood that could only have been accentuated with a bit of turquoise.

I finished it with just one coat of tung oil and then sprayed it with a matte finish to keep its natural look.

The grain and lines created by the spalting are quite mesmerizing. I find it hard to walk by this piece without picking it up and taking a closer look.

Here’s some more photos:

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Here’s a kitchen island that my wife and I completed (finally!) early last year. It is made of Pine and has a thick Birch top. It measures approximately 36″ long by 24 inches wide and 34 inches tall. The base has been painted and the natural top has a polyurethane finish. It also features Southwest style icons on all sides of the base.

This has been a project that was a long time in the making. The wood that was used to make it was reclaimed from other pieces of furniture that somehow found its way back to us.

The four beautiful Maple legs and the Birch top came from an old table that came with our previous home when we bought it almost 25 years ago. We used it as a computer table for several years and then it went on to be used as same at our niece’s home. Years later it returned to us and with no one else wanting it we hung onto it. After visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009 for the 2009 AAW Symposium we were inspired to use the table in a Southwest style kitchen island for our home.

Here’s a photo of the pieces that we used:

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