A Homemade or Crafted Solution is a bed that either you or another person builds to your specifications, usually out of wood!

How difficult can building a bed be?

Most of the beds that you have slept on have had wooden frames right? Maybe not. Did you ever look closely to see if there was a steel frame inside that wooden frame? Many modern frames use a hidden steel frame on the “under the bed” section. Why should that matter? If you are modeling the bed that you are making after a lightweight wooden bed, with a hidden metal frame, you may find yourself crashing to the floor. Understanding materials is a very important part of building a wooden bed.

What is there to understand about wood? Have you ever loaded up a wooden bookshelf with books only to watch it sag in the middle? That is because the grain of the wood, or the plywood, is at a 90 degree angle to the force that is being applied by the weight of the books. The wood is not thick enough to resist the weight of the books. In order to have a comfortable and safe wooden bed you need to either use heavier pieces of wood, or you have to use the natural properties of the wood to their best advantage. Let me show you what I mean.

If we use a board that is 1 inch by 6 inches by 7 feet, and place it flat, and then place a 50 pound weight in the center of it, it will bend severely, or maybe even break. This board is in tension. Image A shows the board set up and bending from the weight (indicated by the arrow). The same exact board, placed so that the weight is pressing down on the widest dimension of the board will not bend easily and should not break.

Essentially you need to either use a piece of wood in compression, or use a larger dimension in the direction that the force is in.

But why is this important? Well, first of all we don’t want our bed to break while we are in it, and second we generally want to be able to keep the weight of the bed as reasonable as possible.

Another VERY important issue is the type of wood that you use. Inexpensive pine boards, with knots, are easily available at home improvement stores. They are weak and often split after just one use. You want to buy the best quality wood that you can afford. Our larger beds (Full and Queen sized) have all been made from oak. My daughter’s single bed was made from pine and poplar (a less expensive hardwood) and has held up well, but we were still careful to choose boards without splits or knots.

Next time we will discuss options for springs, and options for assembling the boards into a bed.

How complex you make your walls is determined only by your construction abilities, the amount of labor that you have access to, and your purse. Last time we talked about the basic rope and fabric walls. The next step up from these walls is simply scaling them up and adding a formal gate.

So, what do I mean about scaling the wall up? Here is an example.

This wall was in the process of being set up when I took this photo. Privacy and access to the camping area is controlled by fabric, but the fabric supports have been turned into impressive columns. When the wall is completed all of the open spaces except for the gate are covered with fabric.

The next camp wall uses the same principal – gorgeous columns with simple fabric panels that create an impressive façade for the camp.

The next step up from this approach is adding some sort of special panels to replace the fabric.  In the case of this Japanese encampment the main gate is surrounded with panels that are designed to look like Shoji screens. I have also seen encampments that use panels of stockade fencing, wooden trellis panels and even manufactured plastic stone panels for the same purpose.

Aside from improving the quality of your walls, the other major focus can be your gate. In the case of the Japanese encampment, a Japanese style gate, combined with Japanese banners, completes the presentation.

The simplest sort of gate arrangement is demonstrated by the Drachenwald encampment. Two simple uprights with a board across the top with the encampment name.

Like walls, gates are limited only by imagination, building skills, money and manpower. Take this small monument for instance; each side of the gate is actually a shower stall. The walls are simple fabric squares, but the overall effect is still impressive.

This camp creates a monumental front entrance way, using quality plastic formed stone wall sheets, and then sets a very impressive wooden door in the entrance to finish the effect.

And an up close shot of the door, complete with a complex Anglo Saxon rune inscription.

Another approach that requires considerably less construction and can be very functional is to place either one large tent, or two small ones at the edge of camp as a gate. This picture shows the entrance to the East Kingdom Royal encampment. The sheet wall provides some privacy and traffic control and the two white round marquee tents flank the entrance. There is actually a fly that is hung between them and provides shade, and protection from rain for those waiting to enter the encampment. There are several examples of this arrangement at the Pennsic War. Using a large pavilion as the gate, and a common area for the encampment, means that anyone entering camp has to pass through the tent. This makes it easy to control access to the camp and for visitors to connect with any household members in the communal tent.

I hope that this brief survey of wall construction ideas helps you develop some ideas for you own encampment! We have “kept it simple” for about ten years now, but maybe one of these days…

I grew up in a household that used camp walls at larger events. They were usually just simple posts with rope or fabric strung between them, but they gave us some definite camp boundaries, and they helped to control the “cut-through” – people walking through the middle of our camp. At bigger wars, like Pennsic, a definitive gate with Tiki torches and a banner, made it easier for people to find the camp entrance and announce themselves to the camp. Our own household maintains the same simple esthetic today, with the only change being the substitution of solar lanterns for Tiki torches.

If you want to have walls for your camp you need to consider materials, execution, and storage, not necessarily in that order. What are your goals – complete privacy, heraldic display, household identity? How quickly does your wall need to go up? How many hands will be available to put up your wall? What do you want to make the wall out of? Where are you going to store the pieces when the wall is not being used? Only you can answer these questions for yourself.

The most basic wall structure is the pole and rope border that our household uses. We use green tomato stakes and a ½ inch red and yellow rope from Home Depot. A large tent stake and mallet is used to make holes in the ground and then insert the poles. The rope is simply tied to each pole in turn, leaving a slight swag between the poles. We used this form of wall for two or three years before I had the time to make small triangular pennants to fly from the top of each pole. It isn’t fancy, but it makes it easier to spot our camp from a distance.

The next step up from the basic rope border is using fabric panels between the poles. The poles can be rebar, metal T-posts, metal pipes, wooden clothing rods, wooden posts, or just about any other sturdy support that you can afford. The posts can be short or tall, depending on the size of your panels. The panels themselves can be plain or decorated in any way that you would prefer. They are an excellent opportunity for heraldic display.

Short walls with panels that are about 3 feet by 4 feet. Each panel has four grommets to tie the panels to the poles. This pattern is found in many illuminations.

Six foot walls with heraldic display. Each panel has six grommets and uses sturdy clothesline to tie the panel to the poles.

Large fabric panels with slits to relieve some of the pressure from the wind. These panels are about five by six feet. The panels are held in place with fabric loops. Many of the panels have been sponsored by an individual or group – they receive credit in the lower right hand corner of the panel.

Next time: Camp Walls: Part 2 – Beyond Fabric and Rope