Lemonade Out of Lemons

Otherwise known as how we came to have two awesome beds made out of recycled and/or reclaimed wood. Back in August of 2011 when we had just started working on our house, we had a guy helping us build the deck. One Saturday morning, we arrived at the house to see some huge posts already concreted into our yard. They were all the same height. Curt was not happy. Two of the posts had been delivered at 20 feet long, but our contractor cut them to match the 12-foot posts, in spite of our plans showing the taller posts and the short posts combined to make our deck. The long posts were meant for the little roof over our front door. Not only were the bigger posts $300 apiece but they took awhile to get in, so then we had to wait for another delivery of them. Not to mention, the contractor had to dig up the posts he'd already concreted into the ground. It was not a great start, but we kept the posts and hoped we'd be able to use them for something else.

You can see the two tallest posts supporting the roof over our front door in this old photo, as well as the shorter posts in the back supporting the deck itself

I found two photos of beds I really liked on Pinterest, and Curt and I talked and talked about how to make these beds using our beams. Many napkin sketches were drawn. We  argued a little bit too, because what I wanted was very simple and plain, though sometimes the reality of construction (even in furniture) is that more is required than meets the eye. What looked like a few beams laying across each other did not jive with Curt and what he knew would be needed to build either bed that I liked. But finally we hit our limit of sleeping on the floor (not that I was keeping track of the year+ or anything...) and Curt went for it.

A few posts down are the photos of the huge reclaimed wood beams we bought back in September at The Lumber Guy, with the intention of building the first big bed to fill up our ginormous, empty master bedroom in Breck. Things just got too busy and we didn't end up building the bed until a few days before Christmas. I cleaned and sanded and smoothed the beams and then Curt cut them to the sizes he wanted before bringing them up from the garage into our bedroom. The bed came together in less than an hour after that point. It was much faster than the other beds he's built, because with those he had to actually build the parts and then build the bed. Here, the beams were so big, they WERE the parts, they needed nothing else.

Everything was arranged in the room and measurements were checked before he started drilling and adding bolts. We used a $10 metal piece from IKEA in the center of the bed to support the slats (pine beetle scraps from our floor!). 

I gave the bed another scrubdown and then stained it with natural Minwax wood stain - the same thing we used on our window trim and ceiling beams. 

Then, my favorite part! Curt was going to have the guy who made our railing create two metal poles to support the headboard which we had resting on the back of the bed. But he found two scraps leftover from that railing project in the garage and just drilled holes into the back piece of the bed and used them to prop up the headoard. It's exactly what I wanted - simple, rustic, chunky and with some metal detail from the bolts, washers and headboard posts. I am in love with it!

Shamesless brag for my $300 Michael Kors duvet and shams purchased for $29 on clearance (more than two years ago - I knew I'd need them someday!)

For the other bed, we finally got around to those annoying,  expensive, too-short posts. To get them out of our way while we finished the house for over a year, they had been lugged around to every room inside, outside on our patio, back in their room and then finally downstairs to the garage where Curt cut them to size. Again we washed and sanded them and brought them back upstairs. For these, Curt used some leftover black metal brackets from our deck along with the bolts and washers, and they look amazing! Again, it was exactly what I wanted. Again, it barely took over an hour. 

After it was assembled, using another $10 IKEA piece and more recycled pine beetle kill wood from our flooring, I stained it. We haven't build the headboard for that one yet, but we're thinking about doing something fabric covered, maybe twill, to soften the sort of industrial feel of the bed. That's Curt's preference - I like how it looks now!

So now we have two completely cool, handmade, recycled (every part and piece - all scraps except the metal IKEA center slat supports) huge beds that only cost a few hundred dollars in solid wood TOTAL and I couldn't be happier. These beds will be staying in this house forever. When we sell, they will stay. There is no way to get them out! Ha ha. I was pretty impressed with my husband's ability to achieve my vision on these two beds - in fact, far better than my vision - and with nothing to go on other than two pictures I had saved and my stubborn insistence that my beds look similar. Some days he can work miracles and then some days, like Sunday, he can't figure out how to install a $30 IKEA towel bar and he throws it on the living floor. From upstairs. And then has to drive all the way back to IKEA and buy a new one ;) And that's how I know he is human. I was appreciating that while I was on my hands and knees regrouting a bathroom floor that I had mistakenly done in two different shades of white. Whoops.

And while I had the stain out, I stained the ledge we just built as well as our mantel. It really brought out the grain though it doesn't look like it got that much darker in this photo.