used debbie brown's book as a guide, but made some changes.also, hubby made a template for all of the pieces to be cut, so i didnt have to worry about screwing up! that made cutting less scary and easy-peasy as my son would say! Plus, template was able to be scaled to the size we wnted. However, decided (after cake was sagging in back) to take it apart and add dowels and cake board cut to size. made a huge difference in the back. used duff's imprint matt to make wood grain effect.