Do-it-yourself children’s bunk bed: drawings, photos

A children’s room with a bunk bed is convenient. There are several advantages. First, it saves space. And it’s not even always a matter of a small area, although this is a common problem. Indeed, even in a spacious room, it is desirable to leave as much free space as possible for outdoor games and toys. Secondly, you can organize the space more orderly: make drawers at the bottom, attach or attach a cabinet to the side. Thirdly, the kids like this environment. And for both girls and boys. Moreover, a do-it-yourself children’s bed is built in a couple of days.

Designs

There are many varieties of children’s bunk beds. It’s not about size, it’s about design. Let’s start with the principles of construction:

• The basis of the design is a frame made of timber, to which all other details are attached: sides, railings. The bars should be above the level of the upper lounger by the height of the back or sides. To ensure safety, the height must be at least 40 cm from the top edge of the mattress.
  

• They make two identical beds with thick posts and a solid frame. One is placed on top of the other and connected with dowels or pins. If the height of the legs and back is not enough, and the mattress of the upper tier is too low, the racks are additionally increased, not forgetting to strengthen the joints.
  

• A workplace is arranged below, and a sleeping place is arranged above. Such 2-tier beds are also called “attic”. This option is for those whose children compete with each other. And two sleeping places on different floors will cause constant conflicts. Two such “sets” solve the problem. Read about the types of loft beds here, and in this article about how to do it yourself.
  

• Corner beds. When sleeping metas are not one above the other, but near two adjacent walls. Then there is also the possibility to organize a workplace or a play space (game house) below.
  

• Sleeping places are located along one wall, but not one above the other, but shifted. This option makes it possible to more efficiently use the available space – fill it from wall to wall.
  

• Roll-out or pull-out two-story children’s beds. This is a variant of furniture-transformer. For the day, the lower bed is hidden under the upper one. With this construction, the height of the bed can be small. This is a way out for those who are afraid that children may fall from the second floor or stairs.
  

The choice of designs is great, but that’s not all. Stairs add more variety. They can be ordinary, as on a Swedish wall or in the form of steps or boxes stacked on top of each other. The most economical option is the usual ones: they require little material and they take up little space. But you can put things in a ladder from boxes, like in a chest of drawers, which is also practical. And these steps are more reliable: you can attach high railings to them to make them even safer.

Stairs from rungs or steps can be located in front – along the long side of the beds. At the same time, they are sometimes done in the center, sometimes on the right or left. Another option is stairs from the end. They are also made vertical, and then they take up almost no space, and sometimes at an angle. It is easier to climb such ones, but it is not always possible to put them up: the area does not allow, and it is easy to catch on the protruding legs.

Read more about how to design a children’s room here. 

What materials are they made from

For the frame, they mainly use wooden beads or make it from boards. And here are the options. All other elements can be made from boards. This material is natural, but it is not easy and long to work with it: every detail requires careful processing, and there are many of them, since the boards are usually narrow, otherwise such a bed looks rough. If you have at least some skills, it’s worth a try. If not, better use other materials.

A do-it-yourself bunk bed is built faster if the parts are cut out of sheet material: chipboard, MDF or plywood. Chipboard is better to take laminated, the same can be found and plywood. It can also be painted: if you take birch furniture plywood. She looks good. It is only important to saw off evenly so that there are no chips along the edge.

Chipboard edges can be processed with special tapes. They are self-adhesive; they are glued through a rag using an ordinary iron. Only these materials have an unpleasant feature: in their production, a binder is used, which releases formaldehyde into the air. Since the substance is harmful, its quantity is monitored and normalized. For the manufacture of children’s furniture, fiberboard and plywood with an emission class of E1 are allowed. In terms of the amount of substances released, it is no more harmful than wood.

Drawings and dimensions of shelves on the wall can be found in this article.

Dimensional Drawings

Regarding how big or small to make the bed when the kids are small. In principle, you can immediately put a full-size bed. It just seems like it will take a long time for them to grow up. In fact, you won’t have time to look back, as the “children’s” sizes become small. And here the problem arises: where to put the old bed. Throwing away, of course, is a pity, but second-hand furniture is not sold very well. Therefore, recommendations: immediately make a standard size bed: 1 * 2 m or so.

Frame drawing for a bunk bed

Corner bed drawing

Stairs to bunk beds

You can read how to update the look of old furniture here. 

DIY bunk bed: photo report

To save space in a small room, it was decided to make a bed on the second floor, and equip a workplace for a computer on the first floor. If necessary, by adding a jumper in front and making a shield under the mattress, you can also make a sleeping place on the first tier.

A drawing was developed, materials were calculated. It was decided to make the frame from spliced ​​boards. This is both cheaper and more reliable: a guarantee that the poles will not twist when dried. Therefore, boards were bought, as well as a beam of small section for strapping. The width of the bed is made according to the size of the existing mattress

The following materials were needed:

• for the workplace – a furniture board with a thickness of 18 mm and dimensions of 600 * 2000 mm;
• pine boards 90*45*3000 m – 16 pcs;
• pine timber 45*45*3000 m – 8 pcs;
• for the base under the mattress 2 sheets of plywood 9 mm thick, dimensions 1525 * 1525 mm;
• corners, screws, bolts.

The board was bought already planed and polished: there is no equipment for processing it on the farm yet. We start immediately with the manufacture of pillars:

• We cut it to size – the height of the pillars is 185 cm. In total, 10 identical ones are needed: in the corners and one pillar on the second side of the stairs.
• We fasten them two by one: we lay one on top of the other exactly. At the same time, make sure that the annual rings are directed in different directions. So, most likely, the pillars will remain even. We drill a hole at the top and bottom for the bolts and tighten the boards by placing washers under the cap and nut. So that all this “beauty” does not spoil the appearance, we make recesses with a large-diameter drill so that the nut and head are recessed. Then they can be closed with furniture plugs or covered with putty on wood.
  

• We start assembling the frame. At a height of 145 cm, the first row of timber is the base for a mattress, at a height of 75 cm, the second is a frame for a desktop. Under the timber, we make a wash down in one board for half of its width. We insert the bars into the resulting recesses and fasten them with self-tapping screws to the end. Then we attach the corners to them, and already at the corners there are other segments of the strapping.
  

• We apply a beam of the required length (145 cm) to the corners and fasten it with self-tapping screws. We attach the corners to the ends of the beam.
  

• We take two more racks and at the same height we attach the corners of the side strapping bars to them. Now the structure is standing by itself. It remains to attach a long beam in the upper harness.
  

• In the upper part of the frame, another beam is screwed in length. This is a rib for plywood. You can make cross-beams from short segments, but then it is better to make support strips to support them, and nail the ribs to them. When nailing, you need to make sure that they are all in the same plane. Plywood is laid on top of the frame and nailed to the frame with small carnations.
  

• A rack is installed, which will serve as a support for the steps of the stairs. It can be made from one beam, which rests on the upper harness and one 185 cm long.
  

• If desired, the steps can be embedded. If you have a jigsaw, it’s easy. You can also plant them in the corners. This is less aesthetically pleasing, but reliable and simple.
  

• In order to save money, they did not buy a furniture board, but made the tabletop from boards. If you also come to such a decision, it is also advisable to lay a support beam under the outer edge of the boards, otherwise, under load (put your elbows on the table), the board sags.
  

• Finishing work remains: we fill the railings, cover the nails with wood putty. After drying, we grind, cover with paint or varnish.
  

The option is easy. For its implementation, only a screwdriver, a saw for wood and fasteners were needed. This assembly option is for those who are unfamiliar with carpentry and who find it difficult to make cuts and grooves. If you strongly dislike protruding fasteners, you can close it with decorative overlays: thin boards can be put on glue. They will hide all the shortcomings of the assembly.

Another option for assembling a homemade bunk bed, see the video.