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.

Craft Closet Shelves

We've been wanting to build shelves in this closet since we moved in so this last weekend I decided to get it done.

The closet itself is pretty deep (2') and about 32" wide. Sarah likes to store craft supplies in big plastic tubs so the shelves are big enough to accommodate them. None of the three walls had studs in very good spots so I had to make the supports a bit longer than I might have liked so that I could screw them into good wood.

I milled the shelf supports out of 2x3's that I had lying around. I cut them down to about 1.25" square and cut a miter in the end to make them look a bit more finished. They're screwed to the studs with #12 2.5" screws. One corner had nothing to screw into so I used pocket screws to join the side supports to the rear supports. (I think I might have to make a website called ILovePocketScrews.com someday. I think they're the best thing since sliced bread.)

The shelves themselves are 3/4" A/C plywood with a piece of pine edging glued and finish-nailed on the front. I primed them so that they're a little easier to clean.

This was one of those jobs that has been hanging around for a long time so it felt great to get it done.