My {other} Baby

 All week, I lovingly cared for a big pile of wood to turn it into this:

Ben's gift for our 10-year-anniversary

To be honest, it was not hard at all.  Building the bed was a piece of cake- it was the sanding, assembly and finishing that took a long, long time. 

Here's what I started with:

I have never liked our bedroom- at all.  I LOVED our comforter set when I first saw in on the shelf (at WalMart, of course).  But I did not like it nearly as much when I finally got it on our bed at home. 

I bought the headboard and footboard several years ago at D.I. in Cedar City, when I was visiting my parents.  I think I paid $30, we couldn't afford a real fancy bed set, and at the time I thought that something was better than nothing.  I bought it and hauled it home, not realizing that it needed siderails, so for the past several years, our bed has been on a metal frame and the footboard has been just leaning against the bed- looking stupid.  Then I built a bench to go at the end of our bed- I pushed it up against the footboard to make it stand up straight. 

Back to the new bed- I could not wait to start building (although I was a bit nervous to actually make the first cut).  I built the headboard in just a few hours one day- and the footboard in another.  I built it all by myself- with the exception of one stuck screw that Ben got out for me.  :)

 

Then the REAL work began.  Sanding, sanding and more sanding.  And then more sanding.  (My friend, Cinda, an experienced carpenter, kindly offered to help me sand it one night, but after working on the bed the entire day, I literally could not handle two more seconds of sanding.  Hey- Cinda- could I get a raincheck on that offer for my next project?)

I decided to set the bed up inside to make sure everything would actually come together.  My friend, Kari, stopped by just as I was trying to figure it all out.  Kari built her own house.  Yes- built her house (and she had 4 kids at the time).  Her eyes light up when she sees power tools, so it didn't take too much convincing to get her to stay and help me for a bit. 

 

Everything came together perfectly (go me!), but rather than take it apart to finish it outside, I just decided to do it in our room.  It took several days of staining, sanding, staining, sanding...and Ben picking up all my slack on the housework.  But it's DONE.  And we LOVE it!