DIY: Loft Bed (by Joanne)

Hi I’m Joanne from Create Inspire Motivate, a 3½-month-old blog, published by the girls in our family sharing our inspirations, projects, successes...and even some failures.

We are three sisters Mandi, Michelle & Nicole, one sister in law Jackie and the mom (that’s me). Each of us has different interests and talents but we’re all very resourceful and we love to create.

Olga asked me to share with you a little about the redo my husband and I have done on my son, C’s, bedroom. This is the second post in what will eventually be a 4-5 part series. Almost every aspect of the room is a DIY project in one form or another and some areas are still “under construction”.

The reading couch was our first pallet furniture project but hopefully it won’t be our last. While it’s only in inspiration form now, I predict that in the future there will be a post about the building of an overstuffed pallet ottoman with storage space for my family room- we’ll see.

C likes books. At bedtime every night we read a story together. After we hung his bed I would climb up there to read with him. I know the bed is secure but I'm a lot heavier than he is and didn't want to keep testing the strength of the bed by getting on it every night.  Inspired by the pallet furniture pins on Pinterest we created a reading couch for C's room.

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We found free pallets in the classified ads and my carpenter (husband) came up with the plan to put it together. We wanted a couch that also included storage for some of C's little toys.

The white (they were black but spray painted white to better match his room) casters on the bottom of the legs are off the bottom of an old sofa. I don't know why my husband saved them but they did come in handy. They increased the height of the couch enough that our plastic drawers from Wal-mart fit perfectly underneath making a nice toy storage area.

We left the wood natural. To protect it we brushed on the same varnish that was used on the hanging bed.

I bought foam and fabric for the cushion at JoAnn's Fabrics. JoAnn's cut the foam to size and I sewed the cover for it. I wanted big striped pillows for the couch back but couldn't find any pillows the right size. Then I looked for fabric to make the pillows but again couldn't find any gray and white fabric with big stripes. Finally I decided to make the striped fabric. 

First I bought two standard sized white pillowcases. I used blue painter's tape to cover the area I wanted to stay white. To make this easier I bought the two-inch tape and let the width of the tape be the width of the stripes.
Since I knew I wouldn't be able to make stripes evenly without a guide, I used Photoshop to create a page of white and light gray two-inch stripes. After printing several copies of this guide I taped them together to make a sheet about the same dimensions as the pillowcase and slid it inside the case attached to a piece of cardboard. The cardboard helped stabilize the project, kept the guide sheet from moving around and the paint from bleeding through the fabric to the back side.
I found fabric spray paint at Auto Zone and bought 2 cans. I used it to paint stripes on both pillowcases, front and back. This paint covered the white fabric well. It dries a little stiff but that was no problem since these pillows are used as a backrest.
I filled the pillowcases with standard sized pillows and sewed button holes and three large gray buttons on the ends of each pillow case to hold them closed.
We have been really happy with C's reading couch. We use it every night. It's strong, comfortable and was a cheap addition to his room.

Visit us to learn more about C’s room.

Thanks Olga!

-Joanne

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Don't you just love this loft bed? And the couch pallet? How brilliant is that?

Well Joanne I think I'm smitten with the whole room! Your son is a lucky boy! 

If I'd seen your post about a year ago, I'd probably have different beds

in our kids' rooms now!

 

Thanks for Making This Possible! Spread The Word!