It was time.

As I tucked Grace into her toddler bed one night and she stretched out I noticed that there was 2, maybe 3 inches left before she would touch top to bottom.

My first thought was (obviously):

What the???  When did you get so TALL?  Stop growing already!!!

But my second and slightly more rational thought was: time for a big girl bed.

My initial intentions were to use my Grandmother’s bed frame that I inherited. It goes with the vanity that I painted and set up when we moved in.

However Grace’s room presents a bit of a unique challenge. There’s a radiator under both of the windows, and those windows happen to frame the most ideal spot for a bed.  Putting anything larger than her toddler bed would cover one of the radiators.

I was only bummed for a few minutes before I remembered this photo from a post on The Bumper Crop

This was perfect!  Not only would it solve my space challenges but it would open up her room and allow her to play and run around under the bed.

Having no clue where to begin, I simply followed her directions and went straight to Ana White. Let me digress for a moment and say, if you have even the tiniest itch to ‘DIY’ you need to visit Ana White Homemaker.  NEED. Take homemaker to the most literal sense of the word, that’s her.  She builds anything and it looks like it came out of a Restoration Hardware catalog.

Back to me and my eager ambitions of adding carpentry to my short list of skills.  I printed out the plans, headed to Home Depot and got to work.

About 3 weeks later her room was transformed:

Here’s how it all played out:

  • Ana hesitated to post the plans because she thought (and I quote) “that they were too simple”.  I on the other hand, thought they were just fine thank you 🙂
  • It took Ana and her husband ‘about an hour’ to build it.  Uh, let’s see here, it took me, hmmmmm….longer than that.
  • Ana says ‘2 screws per deck board per joist’.  Now, let me be clear here that I wouldn’t dare doubt her plans but for me this was a bit of ‘screw overkill’.

So I built the bed and then we enlisted Uncle Randy to come over and hang it.  And just so you know Uncle Randy, when someone asked Grace the other day who made her bed for her she gave all the credit to you. Hmph. Honestly though, this bad boy is heavy and we couldn’t have done it without you.

Here’s a view of the space under the bed.  We were paranoid about the weight and didn’t trust the bed just hanging from the ropes so we added some brackets on the wall for it to ‘rest’ on.   I also built the ladder specifically to also act as a brace for the bed.  This baby is going nowhere.

I got the Ikea chair on Craigs List (score!), hung some scrapbooking papers (that Grace chose personally) in Ikea frames, bought the lamp and dimmer (also Ikea) and the rest was hers already.
Birds eye view
Plenty of room to grow.
Do you have any space challenges that you’ve had to overcome in a bedroom?  Have you built a loft bed? I would love to see it!
Featured on Remodelaholic
Linked up at Thrifty Decor Chick
UPDATE: It’s been two years and the bed is still as sturdy as the day we hung it. Come see how I transformed it when this room became my boys’ room: Boy’s Room Makeover