Little girls love to imitate the warm and loving bond between a mother and her baby through playing and cuddling up with their favorite dolls. When it's time for the baby's nap or bedtime, a little girl would love to place her doll in her very own doll bed. When designing building plans for 18-inch doll beds, make the structure simple yet decorative.
What You Need
Purchase a 1/2- or 19/32-inch-thick, 4-by-8 foot plywood sheet. If you're making only one doll bed, then there will be excess plywood left over. See if you can purchase a 4-by-4 feet sheet of the plywood instead. If you're making several 18-inch doll beds, then you will easily make use of all the plywood.
One-inch wood screws, wood glue, clamps, a drill, a jigsaw, a router, a palm sander and a circular saw or a table saw are the supplies and tools needed to cut the wood parts for the 18-inch doll bed and to secure them together. While the circular saw or the table saw is used to cut out the wood parts, the jigsaw is on hand to cut decorative designs into the wood. The sander will sand down any rough spots along the edges and smooth down the wood sides, and the router will round the edges of the wood over with decorative cuts.
Cutting the Parts
The construction of the 18-inch doll bed will be of two end boards, two horizontal boards--one for the bed base and the other for a lower shelf--and two horizontal side boards to close in the bed base for the 18-inch doll bed.
Cut out two base pieces--18 inches long by 10- to 12-inches wide--for the bed base and the lower shelf. The width will give the bed extra room for the doll, blanket and baby bed accessories. Cut the two side panels to the width of the 18-inch doll bed base pieces, 10- to 12-inches wide. The height or length of the side panels can vary around 2 feet--more or less--depending upon what decorative designs you will want to cut into the side panels.
Cut out two 19- or 19 1/4-by-5-inch side-railing pieces from the plywood. The extra inch or inch and a half is to overlap onto the two side panels at both ends for support. Sand all six pieces smooth and set aside the bed base and shelf pieces. Sketch your decorative design onto one of the two side panels and then place the other panel underneath it and clamp together. Cut the design out through the two pieces of plywood--this will make both ends of the 18-inch doll bed the same.
Use the router outfitted with your favorite decorative bit to finish the sides and top edges of the side panels, the top edges of the side-railing pieces and the two lengthwise sides of the bottom shelf. Sand over the router edges for extra smoothness.
The Assembly
Mark the position of the bed base and the lower shelf onto each side panel. Drill two pilot holes through the side panels for both pieces. Apply a generous amount of wood glue and screw the pieces into place. Wood glue and screw the two side-railing pieces both into the lengthwise sides of the bed base and the two side panels at both ends.
Decide on the finish for the 18-inch doll bed. Paint color choices make it easy to coordinate colors with doll accessories, while a natural finish sealed with non-toxic polyurethane will give the bed a neutral yet country or rustic appearance.
Tags: 18-inch doll, side panels, both ends, panels both, side panels both