Wow...I haven't published a blog since November? I'm not even going to talk about it. I'm just lazy that's all ;)
In other news I managed to build myself a bed. Yes it's a miracle. No, it's not perfect. But it holds up my bed and after 9 months of sleeping on a mattress on the floor I'll take anything I can get!
First of all I have to give credit to the inspiration behind my crazy idea to build at all. Her name is Ana and her website is www.knock-offwood.com. It is an AMAZING site! She has literally hundreds of free plans for building your own furniture with step-by-step color-coded instructions. They even include shopping and cut lists and cutting layouts so you know exactly how to cut your 4'x8' piece of wood to get the most out of it. It's amazing and you should totally check it out! But I'm warning you if you do you might want to build something yourself!!
So here's the short story: It took me a month to build this bed. Due to poor (but cheaper) boards, warping, poor craftsmanship and my own stupidity I had a few issues along the way. My frustration built to the point that I didn't even want to finish. But after $350 in materials I couldn't just stop!
Issue #1: I had 4'x8' boards and no table saw! I took the boards to my friend's dad who had a small table saw. But when he saw the boards were 3/4" he said it was too small to cut it. So he cut them by hand with a skill saw instead. It takes real talent to be able to cut straight with a skill saw but he did an amazing job! There were only slight errors here and there but with a little sanding everything worked out great!
Issue #2: Warped boards. I tried to be careful in choosing my wood but there was so much to buy apparently I wasn't always careful. Some of the boards were warped quite a bit and in order to get them to line up we had to get creative. Thanks to my mom for being willing to help!!
Issue #3: Sanding. I bought the cheapest boards I could find which resulted in not the highest quality wood. This meant a LOT of sanding. I hate sanding. Thank GOODNESS my dad has a belt sander and a finishing sander. If I had to do it by hand I would have died!
Issue #4: Staining. I originally wanted black but the night I wanted to start staining I went to WalMart and they didn't have any. So I went with the darkest brown I could find. After the first coat I was not a fan of the color but I didn't want to sand any more! So I just went with it. Luckily after two coats and a coat of glossy polyurethane it worked out perfectly!
(After two coats w/out the polyurethane...already looking better!) Issue #5 I don't have a picture of. Inserting the drawers. The fronts were warped, some of the center poles didn't line up, I had to trim some of the fronts, I had to buy new slides.....I wanted to pull my hair out. But eventually....it came together!
Issue #6: Putting it together. Luckily I have brothers who were willing to help. Cody had to hold the spacer in place while Brett screwed it in. I thought it was hilarious!
FINISHED!!! After all the issues it was totally worth it! I'm amazed at how good it looks all put together, when getting it together was such a pain. (Also please ignore the fact that the walls and curtains don't match...once I got them up and realized it I didn't want to take them down. Good thing I'm moving in a week!) Also I LOVE all the storage! As someone who is OCD about organization I love having more places to hide all my junk!
