Oh I Love A Bit Of DIY - Making A Couch With My Girls

I live a very DIY lifestyle, having converted my truck into a home and the bus that I lived in previously. To creating outdoor living spaces, where me and my girls can cook, hang out and bathe in. To date I have built two compost toilets as well. I really love, the feeling of satisfaction I get, when I build something. The more I build, the more skills I aquire.

I love using reclaimed wood and any other materials I can get my hands on. I have built water towers in the past to grow food in and made a few pallet gardens as well. Skills that I shared with others, when I held some workshops in France, when I was living there for a little bit.

One of the homes that I built. Check out that couch.

What good are skills, if we can't share them!

Well, that's how I feel anyway.

Included in the latest Weekend Engagement writing suggestions, is the following prompt by @galenkp

Showcase one of your own household DIY projects with no more than four of your own photos and at least 250 words of explanation text.

There are many DIY projects that I could share and also ones that I have shared already. But many I have not taken any pictures of. When I am busy building, taking photos is usually the last thing on my mind. It is always afterwards that I think, ah I should have recorded this process.

I always try and get my girls involved, as it is really important that they know how to build. My eldest two are quite good at using hand tools and are usually up for helping me out, whenever I am building something. I built a couch for inside the truck with my two eldest, so I have decided to share that.

I have had the truck for around 8 years now and for the first few years we had a second hand sofa that turned into a bed. But after I split with my girls dad, I got rid of it and a friend helped to built a bed for me. But we were then missing a couch, which everyone needs in their living space, somewhere to just sit and chill.

I like to leave my bed for sleeping, but for a while it was used as a couch as well. I didn't really have the money to buy wood, so I used what I had already. So I ended up using a bookcase, ( which you can see me starting to cut in the picture above),after I had found another place for our books. After cutting it in two, I put both of the pieces together, attaching them with brackets, so that I had the right depth in which you can sit comfortably. You can see it in the picture below.

As you can see, I then needed to make another base, otherwise I would have ended up with a one sitter. I did this, using off cuts that I had lying around, from other projects. You can see me and my daughter making that second base above. I used the same measurements of the old bookcase and held the wood together using brackets and screws. I also added wood all the way along the bottom of the base, to make it more stable. (Some which you can see on the ground, waiting to be attached).

I can't explain how good it was to finally have a couch again and even better, that me and my girls where the ones who built it.