A Birthday Bed

I built this OP Loft Bed for my daughter's 13th birthday. I bought the plans several months ago, maybe even a year. We weren't sure she'd really want one. Turns out it was a great gift!
The plans for the OP Loftbed are excellent. The site has a great photo gallery and instructions that make building it quite easy.
There are a few things I'll keep in mind when I build the next one for my younger daughter:

• The wood, bought from Home Depot, is heavy and wet. I got a pretty good work out moving it around and then hauling all the parts up from the basement to the second floor bedroom.
• A brad-point drill bit (3/8") is essential. I used a drill press for all the holes and even at high speed they were splintery. I think the brad-point bit would make a big difference.
• I need a new chop saw. Mine is close to 15 years old and no matter how many times I adjust it, it just won't cut square anymore. When cross cutting a 2x6, it's off by between a 16th and a 32nd of an inch. This didn't matter too much on this bed except when it came to cutting the mitered mattress supports. A few good whacks with a hammer made things work, but a new saw would be nicer!
  

I think the most time consuming part of the project was sanding all of the mill ink off of the parts. Granted, this is just construction grade lumber, but even so, I didn't want to see all that crappy printing from the mill on the parts. I'm glad I spent the time doing it. Of course, doing that made me realize I need a better dust collection system!
This was a very satisfying project to build. The bed really is as sturdy as they claim on the OP Loftbed site. I can't even wiggle the thing, it's so sturdy!
Update November 21,2010 After a while, my daughter decided that she didn't like sleeping in this bed. It sat in the basement for a while while I waited to see if my other daughter would like to use it. Alas, she didn't either. I tried selling it on Craigslist but there were no takers (quite a bit of interest, though). Finally, I posted it on one of my local Freecycle lists and it went quickly. A really nice family with two small kids and a new house took it away today. They seemed pleased to get it so I felt good about the bed going to a place where it'd be used.