The sleigh bed I made for the Victorianna’s little girl’s room is a kit I bought off eBay, and the instructions didn’t come with it. I went online looking for pictures and ended up on Karen Benson’s website. One piece from my kit is stamped HCC which I think stands for “Heritage House Collection.” I don’t know if they’re associated with Karen Benson in some way but it seems to be the same kit, and from the photo on her website I was able to figure out how it goes together. And once I figured that out, I promptly changed it!

[Clarification 11/29/15: I was poking around the Half Scale Yahoo group and found a post from 2001 that says Karen Benson bought the Heritage House Collection line. Mystery solved!]

Here are the pieces that came with the kit:

Something about the base bothered me. It doesn’t have a front and back piece — just side pieces — so the feet end up looking one-dimensional instead of having the bulk of many the sleigh bed feet I found on Google Images. I decided to leave off the bottom pieces and make my own bulky feet.

I started by assembling the frame. Easy enough.

These pieces were supposed to go together to form the headboard and footboard. Sleigh beds have curved tops so maybe I was supposed to sand the top of the skinny piece to curve it?

I had some quarter round of the correct thickness lying around, so I used that instead.

With the quarter round glued on the top was a little too tall, jutting out above the side pieces. The quarter round I used is the same height as the pieces I replaced, so this might have been by design?

Easily fixed! I used the disc sander to sand down the bottom of the piece until it fit well.

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