First project: A bunk bed

I decided to jump right into building and make something that I've been wanting for my baby girl but couldn't afford any quality ones. A bunk bed. we checked out local stores and even the furniture wholesalers and discounters but the ones under $500 were all wobbly crap, to put it nicely. if I am scared to sit my fat butt on the bed next to my child, I will not spend $500 on it. That would be idiotic.

So i stumbled upon many different building plans online and while many of the free plans were ok, nothing really grabbed me. Most of the free plans had horizontal boards spaced out from floor to the top on each end. They looked cheap and camp-like. I wanted more traditional and cute. One that could be used for many years and not look like we were at sleepaway camp about to get chopped up by a serial killer (Please tell me i'm not the only one who remembers these pathetic horror movies)

I'm too cheap to buy a building plan, so I kept on searching. I hit the jackpot and found Ana's blog, Knock Off Wood. She has an awesome blog dedicated to helping women get out in the world of tools and get to building. She is a genius. She looks at various name brand solidly built furniture and then whips up very simple to read pans on how to build each piece. you will be seeing a lot of mention of her blog here, so might as well bookmark it now. I have quite the extensive list of project I want to tackle.

Anyway, she created a plan for a bed that was inspired by the Land of Nod's "simple bed". This is the perfect bunk bed for miss Alyssa. She saw it and loved it and the picture is now up on my fridge while she anxiously waits for me to "build it now" lol. She doesn't quite get the concept of patience.

This is the mock-up of her sketch for the beds:


Isn't it awesome? I don't think i'll go with those colors though lol. They are just to show the different pieces. If you want to see the plans, click here. just keep in mind that they are based on building 2 twin beds, and those plans you can get by clicking here.

My sister, Jo, who we also call Joey, said she'd help me build it and will let me built it at her house since she has a back patio. Yay! thanks Joey! (Yes, boy names run in the family).

So today's adventure took me to home depot and I got almost all my lumber that we need. I drove my clown car, affectionately known as the mom-mobile by hubby, home filled to the brim with pine lumber and grinning the whole way because I'm sure I looked ridiculous. Here's a pic from my door :). Couldn't even see out the passenger side and used a baby blanket to protect the front windshield :).


And here is the view from the hatchback!


Tomorrow hubby will empty the clown car for me off at Joey's so I can head with the munchkin to one more lumber yard to get the last few pieces of wood. Hopefully hubby gets done early with helping my BIL (brother in law, Joey's hubby) with yard work so he can watch the munchkin so I can get to work.

:)