Ellery's Big Girl Bed pt. 2

The next Monday we set out to get the wood that we would need. This should be a simple task since one of the biggest lumber yards that I have seen here is only a few kilometers down the road. We were led to the lumber stacks to find some 8-foot 2x4’s. They didn’t have any 8 footers, but they had some 10-footers. I figured they’d work fine so we started pulling them out. That’s when I noticed they looked kind of funny. It turns out they weren’t 10-foot pieces…but two 5-foot pieces joined together. We finally found a pile of 2x4’s that would work. Over ¾ of them had some kind of defect; cracks, rotted parts, holes from knots, warped pieces, large ink blotches, or they weren’t actually a 2x4 (but a little bit smaller). We got through the pile and still hadn’t found the 9 pieces we needed so they went to cut some for us.

Then we went to find some 2x2’s and some 1x4’s. They were much easier to find. By the time we had those pieces pulled out, they came back with a few fresh cut 2x4’s for us. They all looked pretty good except for the big blue ink splotches. We asked if they had any pieces of wood without these ink blotches, but they didn't. It wasn’t ideal as we were only planning on varnishing the bed, but I figured out how we'd be able to hide some of the ink blotches against a wall or under the bed.

The final count was:

(9) 2x4x10ft

(5) 1x4x10ft

(2) 2x2x8ft

for a total of $61. 

We loaded the car with our expensive lumber and headed home.

To be continued