I'm not a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination. This is the first building project I've done in God knows how long. Having a brad nailer is almost a must. it make the assembly of this headboard a piece of cake. The hardest part by far for me was finding untreated 4x4's. especially since we wanted to leave them the natural color of the wood. I finally found a local lumber yard that also had a pallet shop where they make custom pallets for area businesses. They had some untreated 4x4's that they use to make pallets with. It took me quite a while to pick out some good ones from the bunch. Even after being very selective with the 4x4's I still had to take 80 grit sandpaper on a belt sander to them to get them to the finished product. They turned out great though. I would say that I'm a jack of all trades type of person, but had no experience building anything remotely close to furniture before. I am usually handy when it comes to figuring things out and doing work with my hands though. If you are looking for a good project to try out, then this one is a great one to start on. As for now, I don't plan to make the footboard and rails for this bed. These headboards cost me a total of about $52 or $53 each in materials. It took me a total of about 5-6 hours to build (2 hours of that was sanding on the 4x4's.)
