Free Daybed Plans

If you have ever shopped for a daybed, you will understand that the price charged in a retail store is typically nowhere near the value of the unit.  I always mention that an overpriced piece of furniture, that is seemingly simple to build, drives many woodworkers to create.

There are inexpensive alternative day beds that are made on a steel frame, but those look cheap and dated and I am just talking about how they look when their disappointed owners throw them to the curb.

When selecting a daybed, your primary focus will likely be on the design (form).  When you find a combination of form and function, you will know that it is the right project for you.

This free daybed project plan comes from Yellawood.  Yellawood is a supplier of pressure treated lumber. The following plan is meant to be an “outdoor” day bed.  We won’t be building from pressure treated, but I am sure that many of you will be happy to have found a plan detailing a piece of furniture suitable for the outdoors.

This plan certainly doesn’t lack for material.  What would you expect from a lumber supplier. However, it works.  You could find alternative methods for certain parts, or alter your spacing to save on a couple of boards, but the savings might not be that significant.

This plan also calls for the use of a dado blade on a table saw.  Many of you might not have that and I would suggest that you consider alternative joinery for the legs in those cases.  If you are gluing and screwing your pieces to the corner posts, you could really start with a smaller piece of dimensional lumber and fill in the voids where material was left behind in the plans joinery. See the small example graphic below:

Alternative Joinery:

The current leg calls for many dado cuts to make a slot to accept your 1 x 4.
 

Rather than making all of these cuts to remove material and leave these small divider pieces, consider the design below. This allows you to use traditional 1″ lumber that will essentially act as spacers.  This will save you quite a bit of time and won’t require a dado cut.  Keep in mind that there will be a slight decrease in strength and the added joints will allow for water to seep and damage (not an issue if you are using this indoors).

The material list is short and should be shopped around.  The material at a store such as Home Depot or Lowe’s could reach about $275. This is the approximate cost for interior materials (not pressure treated wood).

The material cost when using a lumber yard could be reduced by about $140!  If you are in the Buffalo, NY area, consider purchasing your Pine boards at LenCo Lumber.  You will cut the price of the 1×4’s by more than two-thirds.

Good luck building your own day bed.  The project plans can be found at the link below.  If the plans ever move, please let us know.  We do have a local copy of the plan.

If you are having a problem with the plan download from YellaWood (Some are only getting the canopy build portion), here i the original daybed plan link:
Daybed Project Plan (PDF)

Free Plans: Build an Outdoor Daybed – Free Project Plan – YellaWood®.