Toddler loft bed
Slightly off-topic, since this project isn't a repair so much as a redecoration. My youngest daughter's bedroom is the smallest in the house, just over eight feet by 10. When we moved in, she didn't have much to say about that, mostly because she wasn't even a gleam in my eye at the time. Fast forward 16 years, and it was time for some changes.
We had already redone that room twice, changing from "guest bedroom" to "baby's room" and finally to "teenager's room." At each iteration we managed to put more furniture in the room. This included two dressers, a junior-size rolltop desk and chair, a cubbyhole/shelving unit and a beanbag chair. Plus a laundry hamper, guitar stand (with guitar) and a pile of clothes that didn't quite manage to make it to the hamper. Oh yeah, and a bed. Frankly there was hardly room left to walk two steps in any direction.
What finally convinced me that something needed to be done was when she started propping her full-length mirror against the bed and backing up to her doorway to use it, because there wasn't anywhere left in the room to put it permanently.
Follow me over the orange paint splatter to see how we freed up some room for turbodaughter 2.0.
I'm sad to say that the first thing to go was the rolltop desk. I loved that thing. I found it at a garage sale, think I paid $30 bucks for it. I really liked the retro-chic look of it, but it wasn't very practical. Except for math and art, all my daughter's homework is done on her laptop, usually while she's curled up on her bed.
Taking the desk out of the room got us a little space, but since the desk was in the corner opposite the bed it wasn't a huge gain. Then when my wife and I were visiting turbodaughter 1.0 at college, inspiration struck. To save space in her dorm room, my daughter had "lofted" her bed - basically turned it into a bunk bed without a bed on the bottom.
As it often does, this inpiration took the form of my wife asking me why we couldn't do the same thing for turbodaughter #2. Consulting the Goog, I found a nifty little design for a lofted toddler's bed. (Lots of cute variations of it that people have sent it, well worth checking out.) With only slight modifications I was able to build a lofted twin-size bed for my daughter.
The changes I made are pretty straightforward. I raised the platform (to 54"), so there would be room for an adult to sit in a chair beneath it while still giving my daughter enough room to sit up in the bed without hitting her head on the ceiling.
Under the loft bed platform
The site has material lists/cut lists for several mattress sizes, but basically you just add 4" to each dimension of the mattress, and that will give you the correct dimensions for the front, back, and side rails. (I also note that the author changed the specs, so that the rails are 1x6 and the cleat a 2x4. In the version of the plans I worked from, he used 2x6 and 1x4s, which you can still see in the notations on the assembly diagrams.)
I also eliminated the ladder, which is cute but would have expanded the "footprint" of the bed into the middle of the room. Instead, I put some additional 2x4s on the foot of the bed. The area previously occupied by the charming yet impractical rolltop desk is now occupied by the mirror (wall-mounted), and is her "launch pad" to climb into the bed.
View from the doorway/foot of the bed
One minor, late change to the design was putting the "side rail" along the wall side of the bed on the outside of the 4x4s. That let me screw through the side rail into the wall studs for additional stability. There isn't anyplace else for the bed to go in this room anyway. As a result, I had to add a daughter post on the inside of the 4x4 to tie in the front (headboard) rails. Makes a nice little shelf for her alarm clock. Almost like I planned it that way :-)
Oh and I replaced the 1x4 slats with a single piece of 3/4" plywood that I had on hand. Maybe not the best decision - there was a LOT of give when I climbed up there to screw into the wall. My daughter is a tiny little thing, all of 94 lbs., so I'm not worried about her falling through the frame at night.
The author of the site where I found the plans suggested finishing the pieces first, and then assembling the bed. I thought that was a good idea. The one thing I wish I had known - or asked about here - was on applying a polyurethane topcoat after I had painted the pieces. My past efforts have been pretty uneven, so I thought I would use a spray finish. Bad idea and, as it turns out, totally unnecessary. Not only did it take longer, and stink up the house even though I sprayed in the garage, I didn't get the look I wanted either. After I had already gone through three spray cans, I read a tip about using foam brushes and VERY THIN coats of poly. Much better result, even if it does take a few more hours to cure.
Assembling the pieces has to be done in the room. The assembled frame is 49" wide and each of the sides is 6' tall and slightly more than 6' long. I suppose I could have assembled the two side rail/cleat/post combinations and then wrestled them through the house, up the stairs, and into the bedroom. Just typing that out makes me glad I didn't try it. Not much advantage, if any, to just carting the pieces into the room and putting them together in place.
The trickiest part was getting everything squared up before drilling the holes through the posts for the carriage bolts. That old chestnut about "measure twice, work once" definitely applies. Everything else is screwed in with 3" wood screws. I found some self-drilling wood screws (no pilot holes necessary) that I probably overpaid for, but my wife had already put me on notice about making a mess in the bedroom with regards to the finishing process. I consider that little extra coin I paid for the screws "marriage insurance." ;-) At any rate, with self-drilling wood screws and a Phillips bit in my drill, assembly was a breeze.
Anyway: when it was all assembled, I had to switch the 52" ceiling fan with a 48" "ceiling hugger" to spare my daughter the indignity of being attacked by the blades when getting into/out of the bed.
Loft bed and fan, juxtaposed
I did the sanding/painting/finishing during the week in the evening, and spent most of Saturday putting the bed together. Turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. And I actually got a sincere thank you from my teenager for working so hard on her room. Kinda nice, that.
So what are you working on today?