bed part one.

So here is part one of testing the plans from knockoffwood to build J a new bed ... lumber.

Phwew. I haven't added it up exactly but I think after all was said and done I spent close to $300 in lumber. Bear in mind the bed is $700. So now I have probably close to six hours minimum invested in it just reviewing the plans, picking out lumber at Lowe's, a trip to Tacoma to Gray's Lumber for the harder-to-find stuff and back to Lowe's to return the stuff I got but am not using due to my altering of the plans.

Which are:

• She had the top and bottom rails of the headboard and footboard the same (6"), but I noticed on the Land of Nod bed they are not - so I am going with 4" stock for the top rail and 6" stock for the bottom rail of both
• She had 1x stuff for everything - it makes sense cos it's cheap and easy to find in lots of dimensions (unless you're using harder-to-find or more exotic woods than most of the soft woods and oak or poplar). But I realized that would make the headboard and footboards 2-1/4" deep whereas the siderails were only 3/4". Unacceptable. Also, I thought varying the depths of the wood used for the headboard/footboard would look more aesthetic so I got 1/2" stock for those 4" and 6" top and bottom rails
• She used 4x4" posts for the bed which are hard enough to find. But still after probably half an hour spent combing the pallet of fir 4x4s at Lowe's, I opted going for the much more expensive 3x3 CVG (clear vertical grain) fir posts that Gray's lumber had (@ $3.40-something a foot!) - thankfully I only needed 12'
• She used 2x4s for the crown on the headboard and footboard which to me seems somewhat ghetto - so for relatively cheap I substituted 5/4 CVG fir (only 98¢ a foot) - got 5/4x3 stock to match the 3x3 posts

So wow - a few modifications but I am hoping they will make the bed look a little more classy and not so much the yeah-I-got-a-bunch-of-cheap-lumber-and-threw-together-a-bed sort of look.

Next step: cutting.