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The DIY Bed Project we recently completed had to replace the canopy bed we had used for many years.  I cut the posts off to use as a guest bed in my new office and the canopy was simply too big.  It is the same bed that now sits in front of the wood accent wall.

Looking at the remaining posts I decided they might fit nicely where I intended to put my desk.  I planned to build a new desk anyways and since I wanted to try a standing desk, I built this.  The top is actually an IKEA “as is” piece, so the entire project cost $5.  It is a very modern top sitting on very classic legs.  The desktop sits at 45″ tall since I am 6′ 5″.  So far so good.

The bed before and after:

They recently tore down an old apple barn near our house.  The resulting rubble heap made me curious as to what neat project I could make from the scraps.

I asked the job foreman for permission before picking through the pile.  The pile was mostly useless, except for 48 wooden dowels that had been part of an old school conveyor belt.

In a moment of poor judgement I decided it might look neat to cut discs from the dowels to use as an accent wall.

We recently finished a basement office/guest room combo and the discs would make a nice accent wall or headboard for the guest bed.

Some specs:

• The entire project required 1020 discs
• The dowels ended up being three different types off wood, Oak, Poplar and Pine
• I cut four different sizes/heights
• We used three different stain colors
• We produced a ton of dust

We have been busy with a bunch of DIY projects, so this will be the first in a series of short posts that detail our efforts.  We recently finished building a basement office/guest room and decided to use our queen bed and mattress in the room to give our guests a decent bed and to treat ourselves to an upgrade.  We like DIY projects, like last months epic shelf, because I like a good challenge and we like saving money.  This king sized value meal got its start with a trip to IKEA for a new mattress at 1/2 the cost of a big brand mattress. I built the floating bed frame and my wife and I built the head board.

New Bed

For the head board, my wife was inspired by and followed the very helpful tutorial at Addicted2Decorating.com.  The tufting required 57 hand made buttons, using fabric we purchased locally.

Head Board Detail

I wanted to try a floating bed, having seen several interesting designs at The Architecture Blog. The frame I designed and built myself, choosing dimensions I thought would distribute our weight evenly.  I used stain grade 3/4 inch ply wood and built a series of inner supports before securing a plywood deck. Although the mattress (and supporting plywood) overhangs the box on all sides by 12 inches, there is no sag when you sit on the edge.

Floating Bed

We are very pleased with our results and only spent around $300 on the bed, including the head board.

I wanted to post a link to an article I wrote on my other blog at http://cyclekarting.com/winch-project/ about a snow sledding winch we built to haul us up an epic sledding hill.  With lots of young kids, we needed a solution to shorten the climb and this does a good job of that as well as making it a lot more fun.

Snow Winch