DIY Toddler bed with birch plywood

My daughter is now ready for the toddler bed I made for her. Here is some pictures while I was working on it and some tips if you would like to make one yourself.

First I made a cardboard mock-up just to be sure I liked the proportions and the forms.

Fortunately the wood shop near my place sells their sheet of birch plywood in 30 in by 60 in, which was perfect for my design (well, technically I knew that, so I designed the bed in consequence). I had them cut in half so that means 4 boards of 15'' by 60'' (I only used 3 of those boards). 2 for the sides of the bed which is the length of the mattress, and the third board is parted in 2 boards the width of the mattress plus 2 times the thickness of the plywood. That means, in my case, 52 1/2 inches for the sides, and (28 1/2 + 1 1/2 ) 30 inches for the headboard and footboard.

I drilled holes to help the cutting with the jigsaw

Those are the leftovers from the cutting of the legs. I re-used it by cutting them in 1 1/2 '' stripes for the supports of the bed board.

Footboard and headboard have the same design so it's possible to put the bed in different places in the room without affecting the position of the cutaway on the side.

 Screwing the bed board supports (the leftovers...).

 This is the tricky part...

Drilling holes for dowels and screws. These have to be perfectly centered and aligned with matching holes on the headboards and footboards.

The headboard and footboard are screwed in place

Finally the bed board is cut at the right dimensions with a drilled hole for easy removal.

I didn't want to put varnish or chemicals on that bed so I just used beeswax for finishing.

 She seems to enjoy it !