The first step was to talk over the design at a gathering of IGITs.  Look at that motley crew, how could I go wrong? :-)

From left to right: Vanguard (me), Insomniac, Toolferone, Woodguy1975, Legmaker, and Fivestring.

This is a before picture of the stock.  Those are really large boards.  I laid a 17" ruled across the smaller board to give a sense of scale.

My first step was to build the template for the legs.  Because everything else about this bed will need to conform to the legs I am making them first. For me, making a fair curve is a tall order so I took a piece of hardboard and bent it to shape.  I spent a lot of time with strip of hardboard and an eraser before I refined it to a shape I liked.

I took the MDF over to my bandsaw to cut out the template.  I like to use 1/2" MDF as a template because it's lightly colored enough to see my pencil lines and it sculpts fairly easily with sandpaper and a rasp without tearing into shredded paper like hardboard does. Also, 1/2" MDF is fairly cheap, which I appreciate too. :-)

This is the leg template.  It's positioned as a back leg but all four legs will match. The bed would be to the left of the leg in this picture.

After more thought, I modified the template just a little bit more to make it a little less "pregnant" and to soften the hump on the top left.  My next task was to get all four legs from giant one slab of maple.  I knew it would be tough but it was even harder than I thought.  I eventually made a second crappy template (on the left) just to help me arrange them on the slab.  I was able to get it without sacrificing the shape of the template.

A quick action shot of me cutting out the legs.  The slab was far to large for the bandsaw. I really like this jigsaw.  6/4 maple is a tough task for a jigsaw and I ran mine in it for about 90 minutes straight.

It's easy enough.  Grab a piece of wood and remove anything that doesn't look like a bed. :-)

After I cut the rough shape with my jigsaw and bandsaw the pieces were small enough to run through the planer.  Next, I routed against the template with a pattern bit and a trim bit.  Neither of them was long enough to do the job on their own so I used them as a pair.  I should note that the burns on the close side were routed away.  Also, the PC690 ran for nearly 3 hours straight on this task. It's a good tool.

Here are the four legs ready for some tender loving care.

After I routed the legs around a template I had to sand out all the little bumps and rough spots.  I used a belt sander and 150 grit paper so that it wouldn't be too aggressive.

After the belt sander I hand sanded the edges.  This was a serious amount of work.  I used a sanding block and I stuck two pieces of sandpaper in it.  I'd use the flat side for convex and flat surfaces and I'd use the round side for concave surfaces.  With two pieces of sandpaper loaded I could just flip it over an keep going.  I did most of it on my bench and bench slave.

Sometimes I'd just grab it and sand. 

Some of the largest slabs had the wane/bark on both sides.  I use a circular saw to give myself an edge straight enough to take to the jointer.

After a ton of milling I have the panels and the lower rails for the headboard and footboard.  You can barely see it but on the bench behind the earmuffs are the long rails for side of the bed.

After the panel glue up and surface prep I had to square them up.

I built this straight line circular saw jig when I was making my daughter's bunk bed. It still comes in handy for times like these.

Sometimes on the weekends my daughter offers to help in the shop.  Here she is cleaning up the sawdust with compressed air.

These blanks will be the crest rails after I turn them.

The long rails were too long for my normal bench so I planed them down on the assembly table using a hand screw as a stop.  It worked out pretty well.  Some of the shavings were actually over 6' long.

Hand tool guys will appreciate the satisfaction associated with lots of very long shavings. I have no idea when I look so grumpy. :-)

The rest of the hand planing was done here at the bench.  It's a serious amount of work to plane down all the surfaces but I want this to be as fine as possible.

My next step was to get started on the crest rails.  I started with three pieces of stock laminated together then I took my gouge and my skew chisel to make it round.

After that I sanded it down up to about 150 grit before I burnished it with the shavings.

I made two of these for mounting on the top of the headboard and the footboard. I'm am really happy with the way they came out.

The next thing I needed was a 10˚ groove down the length of the crest rail to accept the panel.  I made a jig to hold it in place and made the groove in one pass.  The 3/4" groove was 1 1/4" deep so it was kind of cool to put the new saw through its paces.

Good deal, that's what I meant to do. :-)

The next step was to create the tenons on the end of the stretchers for the headboard and footboard. I used my miter gauge and my router table for the task. It's a pretty beefy tenon at 1" long and just over 1/2" wide.

I used a short piece of purple heart to layout where the panel and stretcher will be located.

I created molding for the stretchers and I attached it to the rails so that it would add the with width of the stretcher.  I used a block plane to soften the edges so that the edges would be more durable and less dangerous for the 2 year old customer.

After the mortises were laid out I used my drill press to bore out the bulk of the material in the mortise.  My daughter asked if she could help so we tackled this part as a team.

I used a sharp chisel to square up the edges.

At this point, I have all four mortise and tenons fit together. At last, the project is moving along.

I made a tongue on the panels for the head and footboard to fit snugly in a groove I'll make in the legs. Using a shouldered tongue will hide any of the slight gaps that could occur.

I work late at night a lot so sometimes it's nicer to do something that doesn't require as much brainpower as building the headboard and footboard.  I took a break from that and applied the trim to the long rails.

I marked the center of the crest rail, drilled a hole, and inserted a dowel.  Next I set a compass to mark 3/4" and used a handsaw to trim the dowel to length. The 3/4" that sticks out will be received by the bed's legs.

I used a bevel gauge to get the actual angle and transformed that to the dado blade on my table saw.

Here you can see me cutting the angled groove with my dado blade on the table saw. This groove will receive the panel.

I did this twice  for each assembly.  I'd mark it to get the angle for the stretcher, I'd assemble it again and mark it for the groove to receive the panel.

I used a jig and a bushing guide to make the groove. The key to doing this well is to make a lot of shallow  passes.  It's really not more effort than deep passes because you can go faster and you get a better result.

I glued up the crest rail and the tenon on the stretcher.  I also added glue to the top 3" or so of the panel so that it will be held in place and the expansion will have the panel going deeper into the stretcher.  Also, the glue at the top of the panel gives me a little more glue surface holding the top of the bed together than just the two dowels.

Alright, this thing is starting to look like a bed.

I had to make a new crosscut sled for my new table saw. I used it to cut the long rails to length.

After it was cut to length it was time to sand it down the molding with sanding profiles.

The long rails are far to cumbersome to work with so I used the cutoffs to line them with the stretchers.

A mortise marking gauge is handy to define the edges of the mortise for the bed hardware.

Next I made 1/8" deep mortises for the bed hardware.

The female end of the bed hardware needs deeper spots to receive the male end.  I just grabbed a mortising chisel and started chopping.  I've made enough hand mortises now that sometimes it quicker to just grab it and chop rather than setting up the router.

Because screws don't hold very well in end grain I drilled a 1/2" hole and glued a dowel in there.  It's only visible from the bottom.  This is me using a flush cut saw to remove the extra length.  Between the snug mortises and the long grain screws I feel confident that this bed could stand up to 100 years of honeymooners. :-)

Next I turned the rosettes. I actually spent a lot of time turning 14 rosettes before I had 4 that matched.

I used a Nicholson 49 rasp to break the edges and sandpaper in a form to finish them off.

Finally it was time to finish it.  I rubbed on one coat of Danish Oil (natural), then I sprayed about 6 coats of lacquer, and finally I applied a coat of wax.

Here is a final picture of the bed.