With our anniversary coming up at the end of May, I decided I wanted to get Ashley a king size bed. We’d been talking about it for a while, especially since our mattress was getting older. Of course, with a bigger bed, we needed a bigger frame for the bed, so I thought that would be the perfect thing to build for our anniversary.

My biggest problem was having a chance to get all the wood and enough time to build the whole bed without Ashley noticing. Fortunately, Ashley had to work all day on Saturday a few weeks back, so I had planned out my list of materials and cuts that I’d need the night before. That morning, after Ashley left early in the morning for work, I got up and headed out to Lowe’s and the lumber yard.

I got some ideas from some beds on the site we used for our coffee table and side tables but ultimately went with a combination of a few of the variations, and modified the slatted base to basically match our Ikea full size bed frame.

By the time I got back from the lumber yard, since it didn’t open until 9, it was almost 10am. Ashley had work until around 6, so I knew I had about 8 hours to get some work done.

Fortunately, most of the cuts were simple, and the headboard went together very quickly. One thing I probably could have done was not frame out the back side of the headboard, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Considering that the bed might not always be directly against the wall, I decided to frame both sides, which took a little extra time. However, it also gave me a choice, since I could pick whichever the better looking side was when I was done to face forward.

The footboard went together basically as easily as the headboard, if not easier just because it was half the size. Once they were together, I had to fill all of the nail holes with wood filler, which was more tedious than it was hard. I then had to let the filler dry for a while, so I moved on to the leg posts. Even though I got the wood from the lumber yard, the overall quality of the bed posts wasn’t as great as I expected, so once I cut them to their correct lengths, I spent quite a bit of time sanding them down to be a little smoother.

Once the legs were sanded down, I moved back to the headboard and footboard, which both needed to be sanded down again to get rid of the excess wood filler. Once both were sanded down, I took the posts, headboard, and footboard to the porch, so I could attach the posts to the headboard and footboard. Attaching to the headboard was not an easy task, as I tried to lift the weight of the entire headboard up to match the height of the posts. On top of that, I had to screw in to the post at the same time.

By the time I had the headboard completed, I realized I didn’t like the original setup I had planned, with 2x4s on top of the posts, followed by another 2×6 on top of that. That meant another trip to Lowe’s. I was already feeling real tired after working out in the hot, humid heat, so I was open to taking a short break to go switch boards. By the time I got home it was already getting close to time for Ashley to get home, so I decided I’d have to finish the rest some other time. However, when I went to lift the headboard, I realized the weight of the headboard, and now the posts, was significantly heavier, and more awkward than when I brought it over.

I was defeated. I gave in to the fact I’d have to show Ashley early. I knew it wouldn’t be done when she saw it, because I wanted to wait to paint or stain it until she saw it, so she could decide on that. But I didn’t expect to show it to her quite this early.

I hoped to finish it the next weekend, but I ended up catching some sort of cold, and didn’t get much done at all that weekend. I completed the rails and was able to set up the frame so we could see how it would look.

I had to travel for work that following week, so I didn’t have any time to work on it during the nights either. Finally, the weekend I got back, I was feeling better and ready to work.

Saturday morning, I sprayed all of the wood with a light coat of water to raise the grain, so it would be nice and smooth when we finished staining it. We began staining the side rails after I lightly sanded them down. Unfortunately, the progress was halted as I was in the middle of sanding the headboard, when Ashley decided she didn’t think she wanted it to be that dark. I agreed, since when we originally started talking about building a bed I thought white would look nice. So we decided on switching from an ebony stain, to white paint. That cancelled out most of the progress we planned on making for Saturday.

Since I stained the side boards already, and I didn’t want the stain to show through later on, we decided to go and get two new boards, which I had to re-sand and get them ready for paint.

Now that it was Sunday, I was ready to finish the bed, since we had the mattress delivery scheduled for later that day. We spent the majority of the day sitting in the sun while we put 2 coats of paint on each part of the bed.

When it was finally dry, we put the bed together on the porch, and I began to build the slats and middle support rail.

We were both ready to use the bed by now, so I just wanted to finish. Once we made sure it all fit together on the porch, we brought it upstairs and set it up.

Other than a small dent we put in it getting it up the stairs, I think it turned out real nice, and I think Ashley likes how it looks too.