Room For Activities

A recent post showed the benches that we made. Apparently these look good enough to make people think I actually know what I'm doing when it comes to woodworking and whatnot. Which is silly, as I'm certainly no expert. But that didn't stop a family from our church group from commissioning a loft bed for their (at the time) soon to be six year old daughter. They wanted it to be a surprise for her birthday and thought I'd be able to custom make something just the way they wanted. I said yes because, why not. Also, she's such a sweet little girl... and I'm secretly a softy.

We started out by having a quick meeting to discuss what they were looking for. They had a bunch of pictures from Pinterest and the like, so it really helped show me what I was getting into. They didn't want anything too flashy (no princess castle beds or anything like that), which was good. The pictures they showed me had a small staircase going up to a platform halfway up the side, which the child then climbs from to the actual bed. For a small child I think this makes sense - scaling the whole loft could be dangerous and this platform makes for a shorter climb. We kept this basic design but eliminated the stairs leading up to the platform to cut down on size. After that I got to work making a model of the bed on SketchUp. I emailed back and forth with the parents a bit before finalizing the design and eventually we settled on what's shown below...

I based my design on the pictures we looked at, but added some of my own touches. The whole thing is designed with mobility and assembly in mind. The top half comes off the bottom so it can be disassembled into manageable pieces and so that the top can just be used as a tall bed should she ever outgrow the loft. So your pieces are the platform, the lower half of the support on the right, the two top pieces that hold the bed, the two side pieces (if you look closely you can see that the two top side rails aren't attached to the head and foot of the bed, just the lower rail is), the crosspieces under the loft in the back, and the slats that support the mattress. This makes for a total of ten pieces and that's it!

After figuring out our design I went to work getting everything cut and sanded and stuff. The connections are mainly pocket screws so there aren't screw heads visible everywhere. The platform was made with a 2x4s frame that supports 2x4 slats and a 1/2" plywood shelf. It's all pocket screws except for the top slats which were screwed in from above. I then drilled holes in the top of the two legs that connect to the rest of the bed and inserted 5/8" dowels that line up with holes in the next piece. I also added these dowels to the lower support for the opposite end that's also 2x4s and pocket screws.

The next are the two top side pieces. These are essentially the same design and size as the lower support piece, but they have notches in the sides where the 2x8 side rails sit and one of them has more crosspieces to serve as a "headboard" of sorts. The side rails are 2x8s with a 2x2 rail on the inside for the slats to sit on and 2x4 rails attached to serve as safety rails. As mentioned before, the safety rails don't connect to the head and foot, but instead are just connected to the 2x8 using three mitered 2x4s on each side. I didn't use any pocket screws here and left the heads showing in case it's ever used as a bed and the safety rails need to come off. These two pieces sit in the notches on the side pieces are and held fast with bolts.

Next up are the crosspieces in the back. These are just to add some support and to keep the legs from ever getting to out of line. They're just 2x4s with threaded inserts in each end that connect to screws that come through each of the back legs. This was a better solution than pocket screws because the threaded insert won't get stripped and will allow the bed to be taken apart and put back together how every many times you want.

And lastly are the slats. I lined these up on the rails and then only secured two of them - one at the head and one at the foot. I then stapled three strips of nylon along the length of the bed to each of the slats. This allows all of them to simply be rolled up together into a bundle. So, to install them, all you do is place the roll on the rails, screw in one of the ends (it's best to start at the head), and then unroll the lot and then fasten the foot piece in when you're done. It's pretty brilliant, actually.

I got all the individual pieces assembled, put the whole thing together, and then took it apart again to start staining. I stained, applied polyurethane, and then sanded the whole thing down again. After that I put it all back together again and made the final connections (securing the platform slats and mattress slats, mostly, as it would have been too hard to stain/poly them while they were connected) and made sure everything fit together. We even put a mattress up there and Leslie tested it out.

A few days later it was the little girl's birthday and we delivered it that day while she was away. They sent us pictures of her coming home and seeing it for the first time and boy oh boy was she happy. Seeing that made all the hard work worth it.

So no, I'm still no expert carpenter. But I did learn a few things during this project (and got a few new tools!) and had fun doing it (most of the time... it's too bad her birthday wasn't in the fall when it would have been a little cooler while working out in the garage... but oh well). And no, I'm not about to quit my job and start making children's furniture for a living. But I do think my design is pretty cool, so I might put together an Instructable for it. In the meantime, if you have any interest in building one of these for your kids just let me know and I'll be more than happy to provide the plans, bill of materials, and some guidance... but probably not the work. I think I'm going to take some time before launching another project this big.

Thanks for reading and we'll see ya next time!