Early access: a reclaimed oak dog bed, Edwardian style

This one's up here first for the club before it goes public on YouTube tomorrow. The Edwardians were mad about their dogs, and especially about building them beds. Most of those are a bit flouncy and frilly for me, but a couple of days ago my wife found a beautiful elm one made in the UK by a master craftsman and said, well, why don't you give it a go? So I did.

It's my first custom dog bed, and everything in it apart from the glue is reclaimed: solid oak from an old dresser I've been slowly picking apart, a kauri dining table top, a bit of mahogany, and feet off a wrecked Victorian table. It's also the first video where I've tried a voiceover instead of fighting the live audio.

What's in it:

• The "design": a doodle on a scrap of paper, a $22 Kmart dog bed as the benchmark for sizing, and a quick check on how much room a medium dog actually needs. Keeping it to a standard size means anyone can buy a bed or sew a cushion to fit.
• Why I build with old timber even though it makes life harder. It forces the result to be interesting rather than perfect, and the holes, dents and old screw marks are the whole look.
• Stripping the gross orange varnish off 1940s–50s oak from a $10 unit I originally bought just for its handles.
• Hand-screwing into oak with soft old screws. Pre-drill, use corner clamps, and give the last few mil some welly.
• Making the screws a feature: countersunk, visible, and set against the rough timber for an industrial edge.
• A scooped front so shorter-legged dogs can step up and over easily.
• Reclaimed mahogany bars to hide a couple of gaps, using the original screw holes.
• Fitting 120-year-old Victorian oak feet: drilling down from the top so the screws line up and the weight sits straight on the feet.
• Keeping it dog-safe: countersunk screws, sanded edges, the kauri tucked underneath, and linseed oil, which is inert once dry. If your dog's a chewer, this isn't the bed for them.

It's not just a pet bed, it's a piece of furniture, and it's built from timber that would otherwise have ended up in landfill. I'd like every one to be a one-off, and I'm up for the challenge if you've got two golden retrievers that want to sleep side by side.

What would you build for your dog out of old furniture? Tell me below, or send an idea through the request-a-topic form on the feed.