I would like to build a raised bed with a desk underneath to fit into our box room above the stairs (the stairs triangle takes up some of the floor space).
What are good beginner joints? Could I just drill holes and use pegs? My Dad suggested mortise and tenon joints – are these as difficult as they look?
Because of the stairs it cannot have four legs but one of the adjoining walls is hollow, what options do I have if I can’t use battens?
Quite fancy having a go at this whilst I am not working.
Thanks

Google Kreg joints. Makes joints easy.

If it is going in a corner I’d batten two sides just leaving one post for the remaining corner. You could still run some vertical down for extra support and to fix other elements to. What do you mean by hollow walls? If it is stud then you just need to find the studs and screw the batten to those with long screws. Will be solid then. If it some other construction then it could be trickier. Nice joints (mortise and tenon, etc) would be nice but not essential. Just overlap the the wood then glue and screw.

This sort of structure is easy and strong, you can see the overlapped corner rather than a fancy joint:

Thank you both – these help give me ideas (and look do-able).

If you want to learn how to make mortise and tenon joints have a look at Paul Sellers Youtube channel, makes it look very easy.

Paul Sellers

i built this for minivader…
[/url]DSC_0402 by daftvader77, on Flickr[/img]

the foot end is his chest of draws and the head end is a box of studding bolted to the wall. i was going to put a length of batten along the wall but then decided that the shelving underneath would be strong enough. the bed is a normal split apart bed with the bottom section bolted down. the whole lot, excluding the bed, cost less than 75 quid.
i used 18mm mdf for its top and shelves and 12mm mdf for the cladding, all sealed with several layers of sealant and paint, all held together with screws… hth

I make wardrobes and cupboards etc.

No one method of fixing is right for every job. But dowels are unnecessarily troublesome.

I use: Kreg pocket hole, lap joints, joining plates and – er – what’s the term for sticking some 60mm screws through a couple of pieces of 3×2?

Nip down to your local Magnet Trade and buy some Riesser screws. Make the job a pleasure.

– er – what’s the term for sticking some 60mm screws through a couple of pieces of 3×2?

‘Winning’

I did exactly what nickjb suggests when building my Son’s raised bed, works a treat. I didn’t fancy relying solely on the battens (lathe and plaster walls) so I put a couple of upright supports in using a lap joint and tidied up the front edge with a plank that made up part of the barrier that stopped him falling out.