The Time I Built a Bed - Sawin' and Screwin'

This saga began in my previous bed post, in which I dragooned my brother and his clown car small-but-capable lumber-transporting vehicle into helping me pick up 10-foot boards for the construction of this bed. Although I was building it for a full-size mattress, I have big dreams, so I made the frame to accommodate a queen-size mattress. I figured I would probably have a few bruises to show for it as I try to navigate the bed in my room, but it would be worth not having to do this project again when I hit the mattress lottery.

Overall, I am really happy with this project. I was nervous about starting a project that begins with so very much raw lumber, but the materials and tools list in the Instructable are pretty much foolproof. This is a good excuse to invest in an appropriate saw and drill, though, or borrow the best from friends and family. I love the bed because of it's storage space and stability. I wish it were a little shorter, because I can't sit up and watch TV without bumping my head on the low ceiling, and because I don't know where I'll find appropriate nightstands. That sounds like a project for another day.

Anyway, I know I left you with a cliff-hanger - 10-foot boards lying all over my kitchen and dining room, so let's rejoin our regularly scheduled story, already in progress.

After tripping over the lumber for a few days, my vacation started! Everyone else left the house and I got to stay home and haul and saw and screw! Yay! I know the internet lacks a sarcasm font, but you should know that I was literally, without sarcasm or reservation, excited about this day. First thing in the morning, bright and 10:30ish, I finished my coffee and got to work. 

Stuff I used:

• Toolbox Saw - $5 special from Ace Hardware. Luckily, it's not sharp enough to cause the wounds I considered inflicting upon myself when it kept jamming in the board, regardless of the angle or speed of cutting.
• Desk chair - Stable and about the right height, it meant I didn't have to carry the 10-foot boards down to the basement and back up to the bedroom. 
• Vintage corded drill - my dad's from the '70s, on loan from the Bob Sullivan Really Frickin' Old Collection
• Less Vintage cordless drill - on loan from the My Brother Lives Here and Can't Hide His Tools From Me Collection
• #10 pilot bit - Purchased for the occasion 
• Screwdriver bit for the drill - Cannibalized from some other screwdriver set in the basement
• Manual screwdriver - used in a last ditch effort to sink the screws forged by Satan himself before I stripped the heads of each and every last one.
• Wood and screws as outlined in The Plan - I calculated enough extra to make the legs almost 2 feet long, tall enough to slide under a shoe rack and storage bins
• Beer - Purpose will be self-explanatory by the end of the post

Stuff I wish I used:

• A circular saw - to cut the boards and end the existence of the toolbox saw in a rage-fueled death match
• Better quality screws - How does one tell? I don't know, but I sure stripped a lot of them
• Higher-power cordless drill - I kept switching between the dying battery of the cordless and the dainty under-powered corded drill in an effort to sink the screws sometime before dark
• Another person - It would have been worth twice the beer to have someone to commiserate with about the stripped screws and mis-measurements. 

First, I used an old desk chair and the toolbox saw to cut the boards into the correct lengths. And of course, I measured twice and cut once. Of course, it rained, but not enough to keep me from finishing all the cuts in pretty short order.

Tip learned the hard way: Measure before each cut instead of marking all the measurements on a board before cutting. When you cut with a saw, you cut off just enough of the board that your next length will be up to 1/4 of an inch short. 

I hauled all the wood upstairs. Luckily, I will be painting the door frames...and the stairwell...and refinishing the banisters, in a future project, so what's the harm in banging wood into them at every turn?

I laid the 2x4 frame out on the floor. Because these boards are thicker, this is the only part of the project that requires pilot holes before the screws are put in. I believe this was the occasion for my first trip to the hardware store that day. Because with 2 sets of drill bits from 2 different sets, I didn't have the bit I needed. This was the genesis of my "Every Project Requires Three Trips to the F*&$ing Hardware Store" Law of Home Improvement. 

I got the frame screwed together with little incident and checked all the measurements to make sure it was square. On the left edge of this picture, you can see the board screwed temporarily across one corner of the frame to keep it square until enough slats were in place.

I screwed on a bunch more slats at regular intervals, following a set of pencil marks that I drew...and then redrew correctly halfway through the process. It was around slat 3 that I realized the cordless drill didn't have enough battery power, and the corded drill lacked enough god-given power, and my manual screwdriving arm lacked enough muscle power, to drive the screws in quick succession. I changed position a lot, and switched tools often, and said a lot of completely unprintable things.

Eventually, I butted the 2 pieces together for each leg, and attached the legs to the 2x4 frame. Despite following the tips in the Instructable, I do find that the connection between the legs and frame is a little squeaky, but it has gotten better over time.

I was in the home stretch, feeling very confident...until I started stripping screws like it was going out of style. At some point, and it's all pretty much a blur, I made a second trip to the hardware store, but clearly did not come back with anything that made my job earlier. By this time, it was about 3:00 PM and I was starving, sweaty and covered in metal shavings and sawdust.

Finally, it was finished. It looked like this. (Because this is a family blog, I did not include my own rage- and tear-stained face in this particular photographic series.)

I flipped it over (and yes, I made Incredible Hulk noises while I did it) and it looked like this. (This is the point in the photos where you are cordially requested to ignore the crap in the corners of pretty much all my photos from here on out, for the entire future of this blog.

 Then I put the bed together, and it looked like this. Ordinarily, I wouldn't go for a bed skirt that is so matchy-matchy, but I happened to discover an orphaned bed sheet in my possession that was the virtual twin of my wall paint, so it lived there for a while.

If you look carefully in the background of this picture, you will see a sneak preview of four of my upcoming projects.

1. The rocking chair in the corner must someday be repaired and restored to it's pre-Grandpa state. (Grandma carefully stripped it to restore it to the light finish she remembered from childhood, only to have Grandpa surprise her by staining it it's current, mega-dark color. (And yes, she held a 50-year grudge, pretty much. I would, too. Don't get between a woman and the furniture finish of her dreams!)
2. The futon cover hanging from the curtain rod. The first day the sun came up in that window last winter, it was the only large, dark thing I had handy to save myself from vaporizing like a vampire before 8AM on a Saturday.
3. The radiator, which will someday be scrubbed within an inch of its life, scraped and painted in appropriate paint in a hue other than Smoker's Yellow. Then I will lather, rinse and repeat on the 5 other radiators throughout the house. I promise to only take process pictures of one! I swear. (It's like how everyone thinks their babies are so cute and their projects so interesting that everyone is positively glued to the internet waiting for the big reveal. I get that.)
4. The floor! It was once covered by carpet, before I got here. The exposed wood is solid, smooth and filthy. I scratched it a few times with the screws from Prince of Darkness Hardware, which is one reason I would recommend having a second person handy to help you move parts so you don't try to drag them. Someday, not any day soon, I will empty out the upstairs rooms, strip the floors and the stairs and make them soooooo pretty and shiny. 

And there shall be happiness and sunshine throughout the land. 

The End