1/4/11
Converting from Queen (Ana's plan) to Twin. End Rails are 39" and Side Rails are 76.5".
Shopping List
(3) 1x8 8' long
(1) 2x6 4' long
(2) 2x2 8' long
(?) 1x3 ' long need enough for 26' of slats and 8.3' of leg trim - see Purchased List.
I invested in a Calculated Industries 8510 Home ProjectCalc Do-It-Yourself Project Calculator while in store to figure this out. Love it!
Purchased List
(2) 1x8x10 $10.30/ea
(1) 2x6x8 $3.82
(2) 2x2x8 $1.34/ea (Quality was awful, did the best I could)
(1) 1x3x6 $2.37
(4) 1x3x8 $2.82/ea
Cut List
(2) 1x8 @ 76.5" (side rails)
(2) 1x8 @ 39" (end rails)
(2) 2x2 @ 75" (cleats)
(4) 2x6 @ 5 1/2" (leg bases)
(16) 1x3 @ 6 1/4" (leg trim)
(8) 1x3 @ 39" (slats)
(4) 2x6 @ 5 1/2" length on two sides cut at 45 degree angle (corner supports) - HD and Lowes won't do diagonal cuts. You either need a saw, a friend with a saw, or a local woodworking club to help you out. I did the latter.
Costs:
Lumber - $40.75
Cuts - $5 My Home Depot usually does them for free, but I wanted to try out Lowes. They charged .25/cut after first two free,
but only charged me for 20, when they actually did 33.
Wood Screws - $4
Old-Fashioned Milk Paint - $9.95 for a pint + shipping
[Unintended cost, optional] Donation to Woodworking club for corner bracket cuts - $10
[Unintended cost, optional] Pre-made Feet (Kelleher 2-5/8 in. x 2-5/8 in. x 4 in. Basswood Table Leg) - $22.00
Total: We'll round up to $95 for this twin bed. Okay, so it's not cheaper than the FJELLSE bed from IKEA ($30), but it's pretty.
2/15/11
Okay, I'm definitely looking into other sources for lumber from now on. I've had so much trouble with this bed solely because I had to take the best boards I could find and in the case of the 2x2s, they were ridiculously bad.
It's taken me a while to build this because our weather has been so cold and I haven't wanted to work in the cold garage.
When I built the frame, I could not get it to measure square. After doing some reading and some suggestions from users on Ana's forum, I found out that your boards have to be perfect lengths to expect your project to be square. Since I have my cuts done at the big box stores (or I did for this project anyway), I know they aren't. Strike two for the lumber from Orange and Blue.
Tip: I could have used the corner brackets to make it easier to get it as close to square as possible, but that didn't occur to me until I was watching a show on the DIY channel after I built the frame.
I added the corner brackets fairly easily. I wasn't sure I could use pocket holes for them, but I did and it worked fine.
Next step is cleats. Oy. These are the 2x2s that were warped to hell. I tried to turn the boards so that I would be able to eliminate the warping with a good solid joint. I found the center of the side rail and drilled my first screw there so that I could try and get the board level before doing the rest. It worked out fairly well, but the warping still caused me to lose level toward one end.
Tip: If you can make and use a guide for multiples of the same measurement, do it. It's infinitely easier than doing the same measurement over and over. Let me explain. I'm nine months pregnant. I don't have a work bench so I work on the floor and hopping back and forth from side to side while I tried to get the cleat level and attached was not an option. The easiest way for me to tell if the cleat was staying straight was to take a paint stick and mark the distance from the cleat to the top of the side rail. Then, I could just stick the paint stick on top of the cleat as I drilled each screw down the length of the cleat to make sure I stayed at the same height/level. Same for spacing the distance between screws along the cleat and also the distance between slats. Guide > measuring tape for repeated measurements.
Having said that (before I made the guide), I screwed up the first hole and drilled it slightly lower than two inches from the top so my clamps would not hold the cleat to the side rail. I wasn't concerned about the height of the cleat for the mattress, but not having the clamps haunted me while I tried to finish the cleat installation.
Tip: Don't put glue on your screws for the cleat installation unless you are SURE that the slats will fit. See below.
After I finished the first cleat and was working on the second, I thought it might be a good idea to see if I could fit one of the slats in so I grabbed one and tried to set it on the cleats. Too long. Noooooo. After having a mini freak out, I measured the space between the rails and discovered that on the ends of the bed, it was a perfect 39", but in the middle it was a whole half inch shorter. Expletives! Thankfully, I hadn't used glue on the screws for the cleats and my husband suggested I loosen the screws on the first cleat. I did and was able to fit the slats in. Phew. I went ahead and spaced the cleats the correct distance at this point and left them in while I re-tightened the first cleat. Then I finished the installation of the second cleat. Crisis averted.
Tip: If you put the slats in before installing the legs like I did, you will need to space them so that they are not covering up the corner brackets. You are going to be screwing the corner brackets to the legs and you need to make sure you can drill there without a slat being in the way.
Sometime in early March '11...
I gave up on the chunky feet and here's why. The big box stores can't cut wood to accurate measurements. When trying to make the feet pieces flush around the center piece, I discovered major discrepancies in the sizes. I purchased a miter board and saw combo to try and shave off the extra bits to the correct size. I don't have a work bench and couldn't mount the miter board so trying to cut 16 pieces of wood with a miter on the floor of my garage, in a timely fashion, was just not going to happen. This project was already past my deadline and my patience was gone. I think I'll look back and realize this was the moment I decided to buy a real saw. However, I'm about to go on a maternity building hiatus so that we'll hit the pause button on that.
When you can't build, buy. So another trip to Home Depot and I came home with four pre-made feet for the bed. They will make the bed slightly taller, but still a reasonable size for a platform bed. Since I didn't need to screw the feet from the top side, I added the last two slats to the cleats and flipped the bed to install the feet. I made a cardboard template circle of the bottom of one of the feet, poked a center hole, labeled the directions of the bed (long end, short end) on the template and marked the drill locations for the feet onto the corner brackets. Next, I pre-drilled just a bit to get them started and then my three-year old helped me screw them in with a dab of wood glue in the holes. Bed finished!
3/14/11
Tip: You'll need at least two plastic paint containers with lids to mix/store the milk paint.
I combined two colors of the milk paint powder and mixed them with the water to create my lovely shade of green. It was still a bit lumpy so I decided to go ahead and strain it into a second container with a knee high nylon. Had to get my hands dirty for that one and squeeze it through, but it worked great! I absolutely loved how the paint went onto the wood. It was really smooth and not sticky like regular latex paint. I was a bit congested and couldn't smell a thing, but my mom said she could smell the clay in it. Why did people stop making/using this stuff? It's fabulous! I actually liked the look of one coat in some ways... you could see the wood grain through it really well, but the husband requested a second coat.
3/15/11
I could have done the second coat much sooner, but just didn't have the time. The husband was right though, it looked much better after a second coat.
3/16/11
Ater the second coat dried, I noticed some paint puckering where I had used Elmer's Wood Filler. I was a bit concerned about that after reading that a specific brand of filler is sometimes recommended for use with milk paint. I would have bought some too, but it couldn't be found locally and the shipping cost was ridiculous. I even tried to do a little sanding with a fine grain paper and painting again, but the puckering happened again. /sigh I will have to do some tests with other brands of wood filler to find out what works best.
Flipped the bed and put the first coat on the feet.
Oh! I can smell the paint now...barely. It smells a bit clay+lime. Love, love, love that it's so non-toxic that I don't have to worry about fumes or anything and I can paint at 9 months pregnant!
3/17/11
My sanding test produced splotchy spots so I had to add a third coat to that side and I finished the second coat on the feet. I think I'll try to cover the wood filler problem areas with some kind of stencil design using craft paint, but that will have to wait. This bed needs to see some use first. Hoping to get it all set up tomorrow night!
3/18/11
Final thoughts: I painted a bit of green on the inside of the frame so that when the mattress moved around, you wouldn't see the plain wood. Or so I thought. I didn't paint enough. I probably should have painted all the way down to the cleat, the cleat, and about four inches of slat on both sides. There is a tiny bit too much space length-wise for the mattress, but I wanted to add a headboard at some point so we'll just install it to the interior of the frame rather than the outside and problem solved! Overall, though, I am really happy with the bed and my daughter loves it too!
