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Bunk / Loft Bed Combo

Submitted by Linda7 on Tue, 07/01/2014 - 22:14

With three boys ages 17, 14, and 9 sleeping in one small bedroom, an efficient bunk bed/loft bed system seemed to be the perfect choice. I used the bunk bed plans from The Handbuilt Home, but I increased the height, and moved the steps to the end. The loft bed is basically the same as the bunk beds, but without the bottom bunk. I left the top rail off the head of the loft bed, creating a space so that they could crawl from the top bunk to the loft if desired. The short side rails on the top bunk are attached to the head of the loft bed.

The beds are modular and could be stand-alone beds, but I used TimberLok heavy duty wood screws to screw the beds together at the "intersection" on the bottom rail of the top bunk and loft, and the bottom rail of the bottom bunk and loft. That makes the beds very sturdy.

The entire system comes apart for storage or if a move ensues later. One other modification gleaned from a brag post was to use spacers on the cleats of the side rails so that you can just lay the slats down without having to screw them down. What a time-saver!

Thank you Ana White for the lovely plans and to all the brag posters for the ideas.

Blog Link
http://ana-white.com/2012/07/plans/camp-loft-bed-stair-junior-height?page=1
Estimated Cost
Around $225.00
Estimated Time Investment
Week Long Project (20 Hours or More)
Finish Used
I filled the knots and obvious spaces left by the rounded edges of the 2 x 4 where horizontal joined vertical. I then sanded from 80 down to 220 grit. I used 1 coat of Minwax Pre-stain conditioner, followed by 1 coat of Minwax "Gunstock" stain and 3 coats of Minwax wipe-on clear satin Poly. I used a cloth to apply the stain and poly, which provided a smooth, lovely finish. I like the rustic look of the wood knots and grain, but I didn't want primitive. It took almost 1 quart of stain, and a pint of poly for this project.
Recommended Skill Level
Beginner

Comments

Linda7

Tue, 07/29/2014 - 21:50

Jacqueline...sorry for the late reply, but I've been out of town and just now saw this. The plans for the bunk bed itself is from Ana's book The Handbuilt Home. The loft part is basically the same build, but I left off the bottom bunk. I did increase the height of the beds and moved the built-in ladder to the foot board. I tried to explain my mods in the "about this project" section of the post. If you have any questions, just email me.

Linda7

Fri, 04/17/2015 - 18:39

Well, as I mentioned in the original post, I built these beds to be modular so that they could be moved or stored. Less than a year after the beds were finished and installed, my family moved. As we took the beds down, we made sure all the parts were labeled and grouped the slats for each bed. It was easy to reconstruct it at the new house, especially because the spacers between the cleats for the slats enabled us to just lay them down w/o having to use screws.