We bought a hammock years ago, but never had a place to put it. I thought of buying a stand, but if you want to do that, you will have a hard time finding one for less than $100. Then I tried building one myself, and it isn‘t actually that difficult to build one yourself, and a lot cheaper, too.

Too build your own hammock stand, you will need the following materials:

- Two 120 cm wooden beams

- Two 150 cm wooden beams

- One 180 cm wooden beam

- Twelve 6 cm screws

- Four 10 cm bolts

- Two 8 cm hooks

To build the hammock stand, you will also a pencil, a ruler, a mallet, a chisel and a drill.

Step 1:

Take the two 120 cm beams and mark the middle of both of them with a pencil. Also draw a line 25 cm from each end of the 180 cm beam.

Step 2:

Place the 180 cm beam on the marked lines. Make sure that everything is straight, and is exactly the way it is on the other side. It should look like in this picture.

Step 3:

Take eight screws in total, and use four on each side to attach the 180 cm beam to the 120 cm beams. Arrange them in a rectangle. Each screw should be approximately two cm from the edge of the beams, like shown in the second picture.

Step 4:

Now it gets a little difficult, but bear with me. First, make a pencil mark where the 180 cm beam and the 120 cm beam overlap. Then mark a 40° angle facing the mark. Now repeat it on the other side, but keep in mind that it is mirror-inverted.

Step 5:

Grab a mallet and a chisel, and chisel away the wood within the areas you marked. Be very careful to stick to the lines, and use sandpaper to smoothen it once you are done with chiseling.

Step 6:

Take the two 150 cm beams and drill two holes into each one, like shown in the picture. The holes should be three cm away from the short edges and 0.7 cm from the long edges. Make sure to be precise because this will be important later.

Step 7:

Make marks three cm from the outer side and 0.7 cm from the edges of the part of the beam you chiseled away. Do the same on the other side.

Step 8:

Drill holes in the area you chiseled away, where you marked it earlier. Drill at a 30° angle, like in the 150 cm beams.

Step 9:

The next step is to push the bolts through the holes in both the chiseled area and the 150 cm beams. This connects up the two parts. If it doesn‘t quite fit, try to drill the bolts into the wood, ideally using a power drill. That should do the trick.

Step 10:

You‘re almost there now! However, you must stabilize your hammock stand. To do that, you have to saw four 30 cm beams, and use four screws to connect them up with the structure (two on each side). It should look like in the picture.

Step 11:

Now you are almost done. The last thing you have to do is to screw the hooks into the wood. Make a mark 15 cm below the upper edge of the 150 cm beam, in the middle, and screw in the hooks. This may be difficult, but try to screw it in as far as you can.