Bed Building Time!

We recently purchased a small park home (about 223 sq. ft.) and are in the process of fixing it up. It came only insulated, wired, partially plumbed (there's a toilet installed), and with a screened in porch, which adds another 81 sq. ft., but it needs flooring, the rest of the plumbing, and some finishing touches.
Because of the tiny square footage, we decided to build a loft bed so that space under the bed can be utilized better. Read on for how we did it.

We looked at buying a loft bed, but they are usually over $300 and you can only choose from certain height levels, none of which really worked for us. Seeing as I'm pregnant now and soon will have a baby in bed, we wanted something just the right height.

We ended up purchasing loft bed plans from OP Loftbed for $10. OP Lofted's plans are used by many college students and the design is known for it's structural excellence. You can also buy the plans for short height, medium height and tall height. For each of these, you can still adjust the mattress height between 3 different levels. We went with medium height loft bed, full size, and we use it on the lowest height.

First we bought the lumber and hardware. Lumber came from Lowe's and totaled about $145. The hardware we bought as a complete set from OP Loftbed, as that turned out to be the most economical and easy way to get it. The hardware sets for their beds are $40 and include everything you need. This brings the total for our bed to $195. We chose to stain our bed, so that added in a little extra cost.

This is Stevie using a circular saw for one of the first times. We did not have any prior experience to really help us build this bed; I think anyone with a few tools, common sense and the physical capability could do it.

Here is all the wood after the holes have been drilled.

This is when we were staining it.

And here is the assembled bed, complete with our home made futon!

With our scrap wood from the bed, we are building a storage shelf that goes over the toilet, an over-the-sink shelf for the kitchen, and a changing table/record player table (we both knew I'd find space for my record player). We thought that was pretty resourceful, since the place we'll be moving into has limited space and we need items of certain dimensions. It's also great to use up the scrap wood for something really useful. 

Stevie doing some measurements for using the scraps. 

Once we get these things finished I'll probably have a post up about them.