New Bed!

I've finally sorted out my daughters new bed! She's put up with a broken bed for over a year now with books stacked up underneath it to stop her going through the bottom of it and I wanted to get her a special new bed. I found a photo of a really cool bespoke bed that was simple but pretty.
I sent the photo off to local companies to get a quote for the work, you'll never guess how much they all quoted...£900! Yes £900 you read that correctly! Now the bed is simple as I said, really it's just pieces of wood nailed together - not that I could do it myself but what I mean is it is easy work for a carpenter.

I then asked a carpenter friend of my husband to provide me with a quote, he said £250 for labour then the cost of the wood. So minimum we were looking at would be around £350, which is still quite a lot to me! But I thought maybe that's the best price I can get. I then thought maybe if I procured the wood myself it could be cheaper, so I looked around various websites that sell wood even though I only had a general idea of what would be best! But who could I get to put it together cheaply? I was tempted to just do it myself but what if I did it wrong and it broke on my daughter?! No I couldn't do it. Then d'oh! The obvious solution - my mums partner. I was kicking myself for not thinking of him straight away but it's because he's a 'jack of all trades' - he works as a handy man etc, because he is skilled in plumbing, electrics, painting, plastering, carpentry etc. So I hadn't thought of him straight away because I don't think of him as a 'carpenter'.
I showed him the photo and he said he could do it, went and got the wood and put it together! The wood (and labour, and driving it over here) cost £90.
It may sound like a lot but £90 compared to the £900 I was quoted...feels like a win to me!
Moral of this story being never ever go with the first quote you get, shop around.
It's a house shaped bed with a little chimney:

My daughter loves it, which is the most important part of all of this! We are probably going to paint it white even though it looks lovely the way it is at the moment. I'm SO happy that I have finally managed to get her new bed sorted, and not any old bed but a specially made one of a kind bed. All paid for with the lodgers money xx