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Saturday, February 2, 2013

Trundle Beds into Bunk beds

When the twins turned three and half we had to admit they were too big for their toddler beds.  The problem was they were also too little for bunk beds, and their room was too small for two twin beds.  Thankfully not only does my father in law mill beautiful wood from his land, my very talented mother in law is a carpenter who turns that wood into beautiful furniture.  She made a trundle bed for the twins that would covert into two twin beds when we moved into a "bigger' house.  She came up the below bed that the boys loved!



Transforming Trundle into Bunk Beds
Two years later, and God has clearly told us we will be living in our "starter' home for many more years.   While we love the trundled beds, my five and half year olds are in need of more floor space to play in their room without having to push in the heavy trundle bed.  The twins are also big enough that they want their own space, and with the trundle bed one of them always had his bed hidden during the day.

DESIGN AND CUT
My talented husband undertook the project of turning the trundle beds into  bunk beds.  His basic plan was actually turning the top bunk into a loft bed, then putting the trundle underneath. Since the boys have a fan in their room we tried to keep the loft a little lower than conventional bunk beds.

We kept with the sycamore (light) and walnut (dark) look of my mother in law's original beds.  Jon extended the legs of the top bed with thee walnut planks that the foot fit into nicely




POLY
Jon designed the railing and ladder with the same alternating wood colors my mother in law originally choose-sycamore (light) and walnut (dark). We decided instead of staining, that we would polyurethane the wood to keep the natural colors.  We did the same with the original bed.  The Poly is also durable to stand up to twin boys.

INSTALLATION
 
Here are all the pieces after they have two coats of poly, waiting in my kitchen to be built into a bunk bed!



Jon designed the loft to have a small frame around the bottom that the trundle would easily fit into without screws and could be removed if in the future we want to use it as a trundle again. It also makes the loft more like a bunkbed than a loft.

The ladder is one of my favorite parts of this whole build.  I am very proud of Jon's woodworking skills and design int this ladder.  the dark and light combo looks great! 



Jon added hooks instead of screwing it permanently into the bed so that if we ever move and want to move the ladder to another side of the bed then we can.
FINISHED!








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