"You made your bed..."

A few years ago some girls at my work completely inspired me with their furniture builing skills using plans from Ana White's website, "Knock Off Wood". She takes things like Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware furniture and breaks down how to build them yourself for like a tenth of the cost.

So a few months ago I decided it was time to try it. I started with a nightstand and learned a TON just doing that project. I didn't even know how to use an electric drill before starting. Then I built a second nightstand, and then a little tower of shelves for our bathroom. And then some wall shelves for pretty much every room in the house. All of this was just a means to an end. What I really wanted to build was this....

The Pottery Barn Farmhouse Bed.

So simple, so beautiful. I'm in love with it.

At 8 months pregnant I knew that the days of having time to build furniture were quickly coming to a close, so I decided to just get to it. It required a LOT of lumber, so I went to a local lumberyard rather than Lowe's. Prcies were cheaper and it was easier to buy in the bulk I needed.

Long story short, it took me a week to build it and a lot of assistance from the hubs. We had to assemble it in our bedroom cause it's so dang huge. We'll have to sell it with the house cause there's no way it's coming out of there. But after about 20 hours of work, we have a beautiful Pottery Barn knock off! And it cost us about $160 in materials.


At the lumber yard

 What our garage looked like for a week

 Working on the antique white finish

 Mason made the job go so much faster!

 And this is what our room looked like for several days

 On a break

 FINALLY!!

The finished product. The nighstands are the matching Pottery Barn farmhouse style that we built, and the teal lamps were from a thrift store. One of my favorite finds ever! Our bedspread was brand new from Goodwill as well.
I swore after this project that I was done forever. But now that Miriam is a couple months old and things are settling into a routine, I have my eye on a certain dining room table plan that I might have to tackle in the next couple weeks!

1) A Pottery Barn House

One habit I have is going through every Pottery Barn magazine that I get (which is a lot because we registered there) and tearing out the pages of things I love. Rooms, curtains, furniture, lighting, etc. I have a huge file with ideas for my house, which I plan to be shabby chic with a little bit of southern country mixed in. This is one of my absolute favorite ideas.
















I picture this next to our mud room, where our kids have their own little spot to keep permission slips and homework and to post their little achievements in school.

This is another of my favorites. I would love to have a dining room this cozy and inviting. I can just imagine sitting around with our cute family on a Saturday morning in our pajamas eating breakfast at this table.














And this is my dream bedroom. I think this is the most incredible color combination. It's like Fall, my favorite season, but so bright and cheery that I would love it year round. I'm in love with the orange accents.