Voila! Bunk 1 is Complete!

Well as promised, I have more pictures. We were pretty busy all during vacation, and Friday was no exception. All day long was spent sanding and painting the new boards (the ones I cut wrong previously) and clear coating everything.

I also had to re-paint one of the headboards because the walmart clear coat turned yellow when it was applied. But I reapplied the pink and on my 2nd trip of the day went to Lowe's and got Valspar clear coat and it was so much easier to spray and gave a much smoother finish, almost the same price too so definitely worth it.

After realizing I got the wrong screws for the bed rail brackets I made the 3rd trip to Lowe's and by the time I returned we got started on assembly.

The center frame was a pain to get straight but we did it and got everything attached and marked off the headboards to get the hardware on them to attach the rails - lifted up the rails - only to find out the hardware will not work with the simple bed lol. I probably should have checked that first based on the drawings but hard to picture it all until it's together. So we had to unscrew everything off the headboards and then decide to just say screw it, no I really mean to screw it lol. We had some screws I used for the posts so we used those and just screwed the headboards on.

Unfortunately the screws were only 4.5" long and we wanted a bit more security for the bed then an inch of metal holding it up, even if we tripled them up. So we put it all together with the 4.5's and decided I'd be making yet another Lowe's trip in the morning to get the 6 inchers. The 4.5's would hold up for one night and we weren't about top stop considering it was approaching midnight and the munchkin had to go to bed sooner or later and I'm sure my neighbors had enough of hearing the drill lol.

So that all being said, I now have to return some hardware to Rockler, and many screws to Lowe's, but we have a completed bed. I got the long screws today and hubby attached them while the munchkin ad I went to a kid's bday party.

We didn't use a boxspring, instead I cut 6 slats out of 2x4s, 38.5" each and to make the frame a bit lighter for moving, we just pushed them into place instead of screwing them. Also I didn't use 2x6s like the plans had, we wanted to not bother with a boxspring but I didn't was the mattress to stick up too high, so I went with 2x8s.

I have to say that my child is quite smart - she has known that mama was building her a bunk bed for quite some time and always asks if I'm done yet and I keep telling her not yet - so what's the first thing she says when we show her her new "bunk bed"? Listen and find out (picture is useless, it was night with bad lighting so it's mainly an audio clip):


That's right - she didn't jump and down all excited and happy - nope, my smart little chicky was confused because she knew a bunk bed was 2 beds and she only had one lol. Once we explained that mama can only build one at a time, then she understood and we got the expected response (at the end):


Time for some pictures!! She loves it and keeps climbing all over it, definitely no top bunk for her for a while, lol, it will end up being on the right side of the room and take up a lot of room but we'll make it int some kind of toy storage play house when it's not in use or something :).

Ta Da!


Always likes to measure herself :)


No she's not this tall - she's standing on a slide behind her bed:


Testing it's strength


Pretending to sleep


Supports a mama too! Alyssa decided it was time to jump on me right when the shot snapped lol


Tight rope anyone?


And just the same one from yesterday because it's just cute


and this one is just for the guys who doubted a chick's ability to use power tools :). Yes I do know how and yes, I own a level :-p.




Now my hands are sore and my back aches, but it's done and I can relax the rest of the weekend, bed #2 can wait til I have a free lunch break or weekend free :).

Special thanks to Ana at Knock-Off Wood for the plans and encouragement and of course a big thank you goes out to hubby because he supported me doing this project solo and kept the munchkin out of my hair and as always was the heavy lifter when requested and helped with assembly, especially on his vacation from work :-* :).