A Bed Appears

The moment has finally come. Anne Marie's bed has been completed. I built all of it...well, all but the mattress. I even built the steps she uses to get into her new bed.

Throughout the last month, I have spent much of my time thinking about this design. There is a lot that goes into it before any work is actually done. And much of it must be planned out so that mistakes are prevented further into the build.

I didn't use Sketch-up like many other people do. I've not used that yet, and I honestly, I didn't want to dedicate the time to learning that program, just to sketch out a design for this build. Maybe it would have gone better if I had, but I made it through it. 

So, since this bed was over 39" wide, I figured it needed the strength of 2x4's. I probably over built this bed platform, but I know that it will never fail while holding even someone full-sized like me, let alone someone that is less than 40 lbs like Anne Marie.

So, I had three main parts to this bed: the headboard, the bottom part of the platform including the legs and the top part of the platform with the cross braces. I was going to put them all together first, and then bring them into her room, but they were entirely too heavy, so I opted for separate components to later be assembled in her room. (I have to point out here that it was Rebecca's idea all along to assemble it inside the house.)

I inset the long side rails about a half an inch to allow the pallet wood I was going to face the frame with to sit flush with the leg posts. This worked pretty well in most spots, but the pallet wood was not perfectly uniform in thickness, so there are a few spots where it sits proud of the leg posts. It is not really noticeable. 

With the platform and the headboard clamped in place, I created a little drill guide for my bolt holes. I drilled two holes in each front leg of the platform and through the post of the headboard. Through these, I put 3/8" hex bolts with washers and a stop nut. It was a perfect fit. These bolts are kind of low on the legs, so there was a little wobble toward the top of the headboard...until we attached the cross sections of the platform, that is. Adding this piece really seemed to sure it up.

Once we got all of the parts inside Anne Marie's room and assembled them together, we set her new mattress on top of the platform. It was at this point that we noticed some bare 2x4's showing immediately surrounding the mattress. We had taken into consideration all of the other places that would be seen, and put the paint/stain treatment on them, but not this spot. I guess we thought all of it would be covered by the mattres. 

I went back out into the garage, ripped down some strips of pallet wood, sanded them well, put two coats of polyurethane on them and then brought them in to nail on the platform. With the mattress still on the platform, I used these new strips to create a tiny lip on either side of the mattress, right at the edge of the platform. That way, it would help keep the mattress from slippinng all around, and it hid most of the bare 2x4 material that we didn't care for. I think it was a decent solution. 

Anne Marie could not be more proud of her big girl bed. She is always trying to get on it and in it.

What do you think of the final build? 

Would you put this in a room?

PS - If you would like to read more about some summer adventures, hop over to Rebecca's blog. She has just updated it!

Until next time...