Back story: shortly before we got married I found a free Ikea bed frame on craigslist. It wasn't much to look at but, hey, it was free. It was exactly what we needed (being free and all), but it wasn't in the best condition to begin with, and by the time we were getting ready to move to fort Wayne several of the screws had started stripping out of the wood composite. We knew it probably wouldn't survive another disassembling and reassembling, so I started looking around for a new bed. We didn't really want to go the Ikea route again (as much as I love Ikea), but every solid wood bed I found was waaaay out of our price range. I tried craigslist, garage sales, and furniture stores, but we didn't see anything that we actually wanted in our bedroom for under $200 (the approximate cost of a new ikea bed frame and our backup if we couldn't find anything else). I knew about the Ana White website and started seriously considering the merits and difficulties of trying to build our own bed.
I have a sincere love of all things Pottery Barn but a garage sale budget, so I figured it was at least worth a try. Once I decided on a design, I got the go ahead from Isaac to purchase the lumber. For about $100 I got all the lumber we needed, plus another $20 in nails, screws, and stain.
Isaac and I worked on the bed in the evenings after work for about a week. It did take us a lot longer then the plans state (which we were expecting), but it was a lot of fun working on it together. Because this is a physically large project, we did find that two sets of hands were absolutely necessary for the construction stage. Once we got the headboard and foot board together, I went to work sanding, prepping, and staining. I mixed one part ebony stain to two parts walnut to get our color, and once everything was stained I used a clear rub on poly to seal and protect. We did modify the original plan because the wooden frame Ana uses to attach the headboard to the foot board is rather permanent, and since we will probably be moving multiple times over the next several years, we knew we needed something more mobile. We ended up using a cheap metal bed support that screws into both the headboard and the foot board. It is incredibly sturdy yet very easy to disassemble and reassemble without damage to the wood.
The actual Pottery Barn Farmhouse bed $1,199
Our completed bed $120
Not a perfect match but close enough for me!
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