Prior to this my only experience with any power tools was wood shop in middle school and to my recollection I don't think we ever used them.
My daughter really wanted a "big girl bed" that was off the floor. I needed more storage in her room, so the steps seemed like a great idea & her kitchen set is huge so putting it under the bed would give it a place. So I proposed to my husband that he could buy all the power tools he wanted if he would teach me to use them & help me build the bed. He also added that we should use the old ikea loft bed thats been collecting dust for over 5 years & we started.
We altered the plans so that the steps are free standing with only the top step bolted into the bed and each smaller step bolted into the larger one it is next to. The top step unlike the others isn't a flip top but a closet for all the dress up to stay in.
I admit I can not give a time frame for this project we started building at the beginning of the summer but things kept coming up so the steps spent most of their time collecting dust.
This past weekend we decided it needed to get done before the first day of school so we painted and bolted the steps which took about two days (because the paint needed some time to dry). We tackled the new railing rather quickly labor day morning when the hubby brought a piece of an shelving unit that has never been used out of the garage and showed me how perfect it would be for the new railing. He cut it to size then we bought a 12ft piece of poplar to fit into the precut groves in the unit for the slats. We used plastic screw pieces (sorry I have no clue what they were called) in the predrilled shelving unit holes to hold the slats in place. We screwed the new railing into the preexisting bed, hung some ikea flower lights and the wall and we were done.
