I did the same thing. It was that clothes-hanger bow-ties on a 2x4 version. It worked OK, but living in an apartment building in NJ (all our stations were from NYC), it didn't get reliable reception.
My husband told me it was an eyesore though, and we bought an antenna at Radio Shack for probably less than $15 (I don't remember), and it pretty much worked as well (or as badly) as my DIY version. A tip for anyone who wants to watch local over-the-air HDTV, but doesn't want to build the antenna: you don't need an "HD" antenna. That's just a marketing scheme. As long as your TV is HD, you can use any antenna that gets VHF and UHF.
Now we don't really bother watching broadcast TV, unless we want to watch local weather when there's a hurricane or blizzard coming. There's so much more on Netflix and Hulu.