***Update- Check out the Video Tutorial!

*Should I use regular Elmer's Glue or Elmer's Glue-All?

The difference between the two is that the Elmer's Glue All is not washable and is a more permanent glue. If you are planning on possibly getting your project a little wet, use Elmer's Glue All. For all other projects I would just stick with the basic Elmer's School glue since it is usually less expensive.

*Can I use this diy decoupage on photos?

Have a sad teething baby? Make them a boo boo bunny.

Stephanie

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Part 2

We will first build the drawer receiver and will start by cutting out the back frame, bottom, and drawer separators. The bottom piece of the receiver is 1/2" OSB (7/16" OSB in our case, from this moment on I will refer to the OSB as 1/2" but it should be understood that we used 7/16" which made very little difference in overall dimensions). The back frame of the receiver is made of two 2" x 4"'s oriented as shown below. The drawer separators are made of 1/2" plywood (This may get confusing but this plywood was also 7/16" thick, but just like the OSB will continue to refer to it as 1/2" thick.). I would highly recommend that a table saw be used to cut the plywood and USB. It can be done with a circular saw but unless you are extremely gifted with it, chances are the cuts will be far from square or straight. We used a circular saw and, needless to say, I am not gifted with this particular tool.

This is how the back frame, bottom and drawer separators fit together. Remember to use glue in addition to the wood screws at each connection. The 2" x 4"'s that we used were a little warped so I added the short vertical 2" x 4", seen in the center of the picture, to straighten and add a little more support. The drawer separators should be place at about 25- 2/3" measured from the ends. Since I've never seen a measuring tape with a 2/3" measurement on it, I placed the center of each of the two middle drawer separators at 25 - 3/4" from the ends. This left 21 - 1/2" between the two middle drawer separators. The separators should hang over the USB by 2 - 1/4".

Another angle. The piece of plywood seen on the end is there to hold the drawer separator flush with the edge of the bottom piece while the glue dried. I found that since the plywood was so thin, it would wander from its desired position when inserting the wood screws. If I glued the parts together first and let the glue cure, the plywood wouldn't wander when inserting the screws.

The easiest way I found to get the drawer separators straight was to layout their location on the bottom OSB in the form of a straight line across the whole width of the bottom. Then measure approximately 1/4" to either side of the line and screw in a scrap piece of plywood. I put a scrap piece of plywood at the three locations shown in the following picture. Once the scraps were in place, I glued the separators down (the separators should straddle the line drawn earlier across the width of the OSB), and after the glue had cured sufficiently placed wood screws through the bottom of the OSB into the plywood.

The thickness of the plywood and OSB made it difficult to place screws into their edges without splitting the wood or making the wood wander off the desired mark. Since I didn't want to go buy metal angles, to help with this issue I would put scraps of plywood at the locations where screws would go into the end of plywood or OSB (see following picture)...and it seemed to work.

Place three 1" x 2"'s across the top of the drawer separators. These will hold the separators into place relative to one another as well as provide needed clearance for the front/top trim piece.

The front/top trim piece will sit about 1/2" higher than the 1" x 2" that we installed in the previous step. I used a router to put a slight chamfer on the leading edge to dress it up a little. At each end I took two pieces of 1" x 2" and glued/screwed them together in the shape of an "L". The bottom trim piece should also be attached at this time with about 1/2" of overhang, as measured from the face of the trim pieces.

The following picture shows one of the trim pieces in place which covers the front face of the middle drawer separators. The slender pieces of plywood half way up the drawer separators are spacers that will be needed for the drawer slides. These spacers will vary in thickness and height as they are dependent on the drawer slider system you decide to use. I placed these spacers about 5" up from the bottom of the drawer compartment (measured to the center of the spacer.

Attach the drawer slide to the spacer. Make sure the slide clears the vertical trim piece on the from of the drawer separator. I found that instead of placing the slides in exactly level, if you angle the slide slightly toward the back of the drawer compartment, the drawers won't have a tendency to glide open on their own.

Once you have the slides in place, measure between the two to get the width of the drawer.

I tried to take advantage of the whole drawer compartment space and made the drawer as deep as possible. I left about 1" of clearance between the top, bottom and back of the drawer compartment and the drawer sides and back. The drawer sides and back were glued and screwed at 90 degree angles. This butt joint will work for our purposes.

Make sure your drawer sides and back are square, then measure and cut the drawer bottom. I used plywood for the sides and OSB for the bottoms of the drawers (Except for one drawer where I used plywood for the bottom, I just happened to have a piece that was close to the dimension I needed.).

For drawer slides I used two different types. As we mentioned earlier, one type was salvaged from an old filing cabinet, which at first seemed like a really good idea. They work pretty well but I had to grease the ball bearings in the slide and now if we are not careful we will get red grease on our sheets. The other type is just a cheap $8 pair of self closing drawer slides. These are 22" long and have a capacity of 100 lbs. The latter slides are my favorite of the two.

Here are the drawers in action:

For the drawer panels I routed out a 1/4" x 3/4" depth lip on the inside back face of 1" x 3" pine boards. These pine boards were a higher quality as they needed to be straight. The center panel is a 1/4" piece of plywood cut to fit as shown in the following picture.

Another view:

We missed a picture, but to connect the drawer face to the drawer I used a piece of 1/2" plywood cut to the inner dimensions of the drawer. I would recommend first gluing and screwing the plywood into its position at the front of the drawer (now that this piece is in place the drawer has all four sides in place). Then, glide the drawer into the drawer compartment and place the drawer face into its position ( as shown in the following picture). Make sure there is at least a 1/8" gap between all sides of the drawer face and the trim. Holding the drawer face tight against the drawer front piece, place screws through the front plywood piece into the drawer face. The drawer face should have about 1/2" of recess between the side pine boards and the center panel. I made the transition less abrupt with a small decorative trim piece. I used the same decorative trim on the footboard.

Drawer with the filing cabinet drawer slider.

Drawer with the Home Depot drawer slider.

Squirt some wood glue along the 1" x 2" spacers and screw down a plywood cap for the drawer compartment.

Here is the bed with the center compartment and the two side drawer compartments.

I highly suggest that anyone who may attempt this project sketch out the bed and its components and create your own Cut/materials list. I am providing my list to be used as a "check."

-Drawer Compartment

2 - 1/2" x 23 - 1/4" x 77" (bottom, OSB)
6 - 1" x 2" x 77" (top, pine board)

2 - 1/2" x 25 - 1/2" x 80" (top cap, plywood)

-Drawers

*These dimensions should be verified once the drawer compartment is complete and you know what draw slide system you will be using. I consider the dimensions provided here to be estimates and not exact as there are many variables that can influence them during the building of the bed.

12 - 1/2" x 11" x 23" (side, plywood)

6 - 1/2" x 11" x 20 - 3/4" (back, plywood)

6 - 1/2" x 10 - 1/2" x 20 - 3/4" (front/panel backing, plywood)

6 - 1/2" x 21 - 3/4" x 23" (bottom, plywood/OSB)
6 - 1/4" x 8" x 20" (drawer face center panel, plywood)
52"(approx. per drawer) - 1/4" to 1/2" (decorative trim, any material type)
Miscellaneous:

Part 3 is HERE!

Here's a link to ALL instructions

Stephanie & Her Engineer Hubby

PART 1

Engineer hubby and I have finally gotten around to this post. This post is not for the faint of heart and can take a lot of time and work depending on your skill level and the tools you have. Borrow tools from friends or family to save some money. 

Our Bed

Cost around $500

Lets get to work.

Engineer hubby's drawings. Don't mind the dirt; this was out in the garage for a long time.

View Side

View Front

View Arial

The 6 smaller boxes are the side drawers. The two boxes in the center have lids that open with a piano hinge. Store things in there that you won't need to see for a long time such as baby clothes or high school yearbooks.

The next couple of pictures give you an idea of how much wood you will need to purchase. We used various grades of pine boards as well as OSB (oriented strand board) and plywood. Material shopping lists will follow as we get deeper into the construction of the bed.

Wood glue is our friend. Use it. You can also see in this pic that we use lots of screws, clamps, a piano hinge, and a circular saw.

We picked up this beast from the D.I. (my local thrift store). It cost $10. We stripped it of its drawer slides and hauled it to the metal recycling company and they gave us $17 for it. Made a little moola. This will come into play later.

We used the drawer slides for the drawers in our bed. After all was said and done we wished we just bought new slides from the Home Depot because these are noisy and a bit rickety. They work well though.

Now that you have an idea of the materials needed for this project, lets get started building the bed. We began with the center storage first as it seemed to be the easiest component of the bed to build. We were right, this turned out to be a good warm-up/practice piece. The center storage will essentially be hidden once the mattress is placed on the bed frame so don't worry too much if it doesn't turn out perfect. Here is a picture of the storage with the OSB sides and bottom and 1" x 2" wood frame. We used a 2" x 4" stud at the top center as this will eventually receive the piano hinges for the lids. Looks like a coffin. :/

Center storage compartment on it's side.

We bought a six foot long piano hinge and cut it with a hacksaw to fit our needs. The lids will have about 1-1/2" of overhang at the head and foot end of the compartment. Make sure there is about 1" between the two lids at the middle of the support. The 1" gap ensures that the lids don't hit or bind on one another when opening.

The overall dimensions for this compartment are 14" tall, 27" wide, and 77" long (80" long including overhanging lids).

I highly suggest that anyone who may attempt this project sketch out the bed and its components and create your own Cut/materials list. I am providing my list to be used as a "check."

Cut/Materials List:

Cut from pine boards:

4 - 1" x 2" x 76" (frame)

4 - 1" x 2" x 24-1/2" (frame)

6 - 1" x 2" x 10" (frame)

1 - 2" x 4" x 24-1/2" (frame)

Cut from OSB (we used 7/16" thick OSB as it is more available and cheaper):

2 - 1/2" x 13.5" x 26" (end)

2 - 1/2" x 13.5" x 77" (side)

1 - 1/2" x 26" x 76" (bottom)

2 - 1/2" x 26" x 39-1/2" (top)

Miscellaneous:

2 - 23" piano hinges

1 lb box of 1" long screws, used throughout the whole project

1 lb box of 2" long screws, some used now but most of which will be used later in the project

Wood glue at every connection so the bed feels extra solid

Part 2 is HERE

Links to ALL Instructions here

Stephanie