Saving 90% at Pottery Barn

A few months ago, my cute friend Whitney made a picnic table for her two kiddos. She blogged about it. She had found the plans for it off of a website called Knock-Off Wood, and the entire thing had cost her about $10. I spent the next hour or so on that website and noted dozens of plans I wanted to make in the future. And I started hounding C about making the Farmhouse Bed. One day, we were discussing what we were going to be for Halloween. C suggested we go as Avatars. (For those of you who don't know, I absolutely canNOT stand that movie, but that's an entirely different story.) His next suggestion was to go as a Jedi and Princess Leia, which isn't near as bad, but still not my #1 choice of costumes. I saw an opportunity here, though, and said "C, if we have the Farmhouse bed completely built, painted, decorated, new bedding, etc. I will be whatever you'd like for Halloween." And two seconds later we were price checking wood at Lowe's and Home Depot.

[The wood prices were exactly the same at both places and we ended up going to Home Depot based on its close proximity to Texas Roadhouse, where we ate dinner with my awesome Mom. *Thanks Mom!*]

Home Depot and Lowe's will cut your wood to the lengths you need. Generally, your  first 10 cuts are free, and you pay for the rest. I think they're about 10-25 cents a piece. We went on a Friday night and the store was dead, so the employee cut all of our wood for free. He saved us a BUNCH. We were cutting the wood for about an hour.

[caption id="attachment_1040" align="aligncenter" width="501" caption="At Home Depot with the guy who cut our wood for FREE! "][/caption]

We went home after dinner and the guys put on a movie. Me and Mom, however, stayed up LATE cutting out the pieces for the king-sized quilt that would be on the bed. We made a good team. My mom hates doing the math for quilting and I can't cut in a straight line. She made everything go so smoothly the next week. Couldn't have done it without her. [Not to mention she stayed up with me to finish the job when she had a 7 hour drive the next day. The woman is amazing.]

Saturday, we started building around 2. We borrowed tools from Emilee and Adam and set to work assembling our new bed.

[caption id="attachment_1044" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Gluing the panels together. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1052" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="We borrowed a friend's jigsaw and C cut that arch out for the headboard. It really added a lot to the bed. We LOVE it. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1056" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Attaching the legs. We assembled the entire thing in our Kitchen. The headboard is suspended between our new dishwasher and the countertop. Not having a garage makes you get creative. :) "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1053" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="C making the frame at the end of Day 1. We thought this would go together real quick because it looked so simple, but it took SO LONG! C was a trooper. I had lost interest by this point. :) "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1051" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="We'd left the headboard and footboard in the kitchen, but the bedframe wouldn't fit, so we went to take it upstairs and leave it in the spare bedroom. We quickly realized we were about a half inch away from getting it inside, but that it wasn't going to fit. We took it outside and wrapped it up in a tarp, hoping no one would mess with it overnight."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1047" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sanding was my least favorite job. But it sure made everything look nice!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1041" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="C sanding down the headboard. "][/caption]

Showered and Clean at the end of Day 1. 8 hours of work!

[caption id="attachment_1042" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Starting to look real! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1057" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Painting. 2 coats made all the difference! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1050" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Turns out our 1x8 panels, which are supposed to be 1x7.5, were 1x7.2. Which meant that our footboard and headboard were too small to fit the bedframe. We weren't about to start over, so we made some minor adjustments and it all came together just fine! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1055" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="All Put Together!!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1049" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Making the quilt the next day. (Note to self: Big = overwhelming) This was a big lesson in biting off more than you can chew, but it all worked out! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1046" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The quilt was ginormous! "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1045" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="All finished! Major sigh of contentment. We're thrilled with how it came together. And REALLY, you can do this. I highly recommend Knock-Off Wood for saving you some serious cash! We spent $180 on the bed. Bammo. :) "][/caption]