Sweet Pea Garden Bed II

I’m back with more Sweet Pea Garden Bunkbed Sweetness!

I have a few more details regarding the plan for your viewing pleasure. In case you just landed here, you can find out more about this build in the saga called

“The Bunkbed to End All Bunkbeds.” Check out the previous posts:

Here:

And Here:

And here we are now.

Okay, last I left off, I gave some info for the bed build and  threw in a few pictures of the front panel. I was all intense at first, taking pics of what seemed like every board until I made a mistake with the frame and had to rip apart half of the front panel. Boo!

At that point, after I corrected my errors, I dug in to finish the whole bed. This level of bed building intensity derailed my over-photographing ways. I had no pictures of anything past the front panel. Well, as luck would have it, I  happened to unload a memory card recently and few more pics of the rear panel popped up.

Yay!

So here you can see how the colorblocking came together on the rear panel. I just painted up my scraps, distressed the edges, and used the Kreg Jig to assemble the small scraps into long boards. I laid them out on the driveway, screwed them together, measured out the length at 77″, and cut the pieced together board to the correct length. I burned through a ton of screws here. Each board  had two screws pocketholed into the next. Lots of gluing, lots of screwing.

Not only were the scraps screwed together horizontally, but these boards were also screwed together vertically to make them into solid panels. I laid the boards face down on the ground and “Got Jiggy Wit’ It” with the Kreg Jig once again. Glue along the board edges, and screw all of those boards together. Right after you have assembled these panels, flip ’em over and wipe all the  glue drips. Gluing these boards edge to edge can get messy. Since I pre-painted all the pieces, I didn’t want to ruin my pretty paint job.

I had my husband help me insert the panels. He held up the frame and I fit the panels in place. These kinds of  chores always make me laugh. I’m out in the driveway building furniture in the summer heat…sweating…next to the trash cans…and my husband is inside watching Lifetime Television for Women and ESPN. He comes outside to hold things while I pound them into place with the hammer. Haha!

Use a block! The panels were nice and tight and I just started pounding away and dinged up the boards a bit before I realized I needed something between my pretty boards and the hammer. Use a scrap of wood to take the beating so your finish doesn’t.

There is a small gap on the lower panel near the frame. No biggie, the mattress will cover it up.

I used my nailgun and glue to attach the shelf brackets once the panels were in place. I just lined them up flush with the top of the board they are nailed to and toenailed them in place. Then I nailed the shelf on top of the brackets.

I LOVE how it turned out! I didn’t want the inside of the bed to be boring and all of the bright colors jazz it up. The shelf is so great too. The girls put all of their books and stuffed animals up there. I love how sweet they look displayed.

That’s our new kitty “Prince.” Why do I let the kids name things? He loves the bed. It’s like a giant cat condo that he thinks is just for him.

While you are painting the other million boards, consider painting the slats that go under the upper bunk as well. I figured that my youngest was going to have to stare up at the underside of her sister’s bed for her entire childhood and it might as well be fun too.

Did you ever have a bunkbed? I was an only child (minus my stepsiblings that visited once in a while) and I missed out on all of that. Building this bunkbed was just as exciting for me as it is for my girls, I think! I would have loved to have had a buddy to bunk with.

This is where I quit taking pictures of the panel assembly. The sides are very simple. A couple of horizontal frame pieces and the siding panels built to screw into place upon assembly. This bed can move with you. The side panels are glued to the trim pieces, but the trim is simply screwed into the frame. It comes right out so that you can take this bed down and move it with you.

When I put the bed in the girls’ room, we put three sides together, then inserted the slats and the lower mattress before putting the last side on. I’m sure if you really had to, you could try to fold the lower mattress in through the front opening, but it is so much easier to just throw it in before the final wall goes on.

I attached the pergola to the bed after I put it in the room. I think you could easily put it on before you moved it around, but I didn’t want to take the chance of breaking it as I moved it inside and through the house.

 It’s so magical! I love this bed! It’s not stuffy in there either. It feels like a cozy little cabin but the air circulates through the windows and openings just fine. We have an old house with no central air and we were  late putting in our window conditioners this summer; I thought for sure the girls would by dying in their beds, but they were just fine.

I’ll be posting more later, but it’s late and I have to go to bed. Stay tuned!