the girls room: double bunk beds

i tried to remember to take tons of photos of the entire process--some details of the construction, some just for fun, some oops!
so now i can share some more details about individual parts of our project.

jeremy drew the plans for the bed himself. he based it off the photos of the double bunks at augustfields, and on the original photo she used for inspiration for her bunk room.

we were more limited in space than it seems either of those rooms were. we used literally every inch from window to window on the back wall.

both end walls were framed out and sheetrocked.



and the rest of the bed was made from a combination of studs and MDF, cut to size in our backyard and brought through the window :)


(he may kill me for this picture…hehehe)



 



the drawers were something we (and by we i mean he) debated for a while. it seemed like a waste not to utilize that space, but it was also more time, effort and money to make drawers.



in the end it was only about $30 worth of supplies and a couple hours to make the drawers on castors. and even if they’re just used to store off season clothing in the long run—it’s still better to have the storage space.





he left only the tiniest gap between the bottom trim and the floor—hopefully to stop tiny bits and pieces from getting lost underneath ;)
















everything got at least two coats of primer and two coats of paint. the cut ends of the MDF got even more…boy can that stuff suck up paint.



the back walls of the bed, end walls and ceiling were all painted white. we wanted it to look like a huge built-in piece—one unit all to itself.

we did initially paint the back walls the same blue as the other walls. but it didn’t feel right at all, so we changed it to the white.


(it actually doesn't look bad in this picture. but trust me...it wasn't right)



the final piece was the railings for the top bunks. a lot of the custom bunk bed photos we looked at online didn’t have railings on the top bunks! we couldn’t understand why—until we got to that point in our project.

jeremy was all “gobbeldy wobbledy construction speak no skinny wood that doesn’t warp don’t know what to use blah blah blah all the one-bys were twisted like noodles blah”
at least, that’s what i heard.

our solution: two thick wooden dowels, spray painted white and attached with closet rod hangers.



 



the space isn’t as big as it looks in this picture for some reason. the baby is not allowed to be taken up on the top bunks, and that provides enough of a barrier for all the bigger kids.

jeremy’s initial cost estimate for the beds was $500. and in the end we came in right around there. that includes all the wood/MDF, sheetrock, spackle, trim, paint and even the lights. not bad for 4 beds.

sometimes when you’re in the midst of spending money left and right during a major project you can lose sight of reality and what’s what. so it helped that in our mail one day was an advertisement for a “cheap” furniture store…boasting of their white metal daybeds for “only” $199.

4 of them would have cost us significantly more than what we built, would have taken up a LOT more room, and in my opinion—wouldn’t have been nearly as awesome nice (hehe ana)

thanks for reading!