Bunk Beds!

The bunk beds are done! That is except for a clear coat, a railing for the top, and possibly a ladder. I (Aaron—given that Krystal is the usual editer in chief) also need to cut some little corners out of the plywood that will go under the matresses. But we got tired of living without them and the boys have been ever patiently waiting, so we thought we would put them up anyway. And they love the top bunk... both of them. The really good news is that all of the bolts and holes (with some minor adjustments) fit together, and it is a solid bed.

I think we started this project last year in May. We kept toying with the idea, so I finally drew up some plans on the computer. We got a few measurements from my sister Lisa who now owns the pair of separable bunk beds that I grew up in. Once plans were down on paper, we looked around at some prices for bunk beds to make sure we were up to the task. Then we browsed prices at Home Depot and finally decided to go buy wood. It always looks good when you haul piles of lumber into a little apartment. With some of the pieces cut at home depot, we were able to mock up two of the posts and one of the rails for the mattress. This was mostly an attempt on my part to explain to Krystal what was in my head. I think I mostly just succeeded in creatively stacking boards.

     

Then our house began to smell like wood. I cut the wood and used a router outside in the parking lot, but most of the drilling happened in our living room on top of (sort of) a red sheet for crafts. Thanks to Tami and Kerry Sparks for the router. It was really great to have it on hand.

After what seemed like a ton of work, we finally got the head and foot boards put together. It doesn't seem like it would be so hard until you think about all the measuring and insetting the crossboards for better support and making sure all the holes you drill are straight (using a hand drill). For anyone thinking about spending tons of time building a set of bunk beds, I recommend getting a drill press... which I'm sure costs at least as much as a nice pair of bunk beds.

Once I had the head boards done, I took to making the rails which also took a lot of time. I originally thought I would make individual supports for each slat under the mattress, and I actually cut a bunch of small pieces of wood for that purpose, but ultimately it seemed like a better idea to use one long piece of wood attached to the inside of the rail. I still ended up making little inset slots for the slats to sit in so they won't move around under the mattress.

When we were finally mostly ready to sand and stain the beds, we took them to my Uncle Richards house and my dad and brothers came over to help. There was still some wood filing and a little more drilling to do, so we didn't get to staining. This all happened in the garage where Uncle Richard cleans carpets, instead of on the driveway, which probably would have been better (thank you for letting use your garage). Somewhere in the whole process of building beds, Adelia arrived and school started, and winter set in, and the beds didn't actually get stained until it was fairly cold. Then they waited patiently in the dark in Richards garage until we decided we didn't actually want to wait anymore and I went and got them with the boys last night. After one more trip to Home Depot for hardware, we assembled one bed last night and one tonight and they are finally (mostly) done!