projects of yester-week

The bunk beds for the girls' room are done done done!
I already mentioned this on facebook, but really enough gratitude cannot be expressed to Aaron, Kasey, Angie, Darcie, Hillary, Emily and Katie for helping me paint this sucker.  It is a big unit of furniture and it would have taken me months to do it on my own.  You know you have the great friends when they are willing to hang out in the garage and paint with you when it was 105* outside that day!

Here is the bottom bunk after we started sanding the orangey poly finish on it, but before we did anything to upgrade it.  Notice it just sat on 1 inch castors....so the bed was practically sitting on the ground.  The headboard was only about 14 inches tall, too so it just felt like there wasn't even a bed there--the mattress would have sat sooo low to the ground.

(It's upside-down here) We added firring strips (thank you kasey and kasey's table saw) to cover up the 80's spindly headboards, then built and attached legs, an apron,  header boards, and finnials.

It took days to sand everything.

Then, we had a 2 night painting party in my 1,000 degree garage.  Many sonic drinks were consumed during the completion of these beds!

 Reese picked out the bedding and we found it even cheaper online. woot!

 Reese loves her new desk for doing homework.  There is a light wired underneath.

 My favorite part has to be the mismatched knobs. We added two more knobs to the side of the desk so the girls could hang up their backpacks.  Hooray for not tripping over them in the entryway anymore!

My other favorite part is the HUGE storage space that adding legs to the bottom bunk created. Those are14 inch bins slid underneath and they neatly store the sweet streets and all of the pet hospital gear. I also have the barbies, babies, musical instruments, and play food bins under there. They slide out easily along the carpet just like drawers.

I'm still waiting for the hardware hooks for the ladder to arrive. Originally, the ladder was screwed to the side of the dresser, but I don't like the idea of smaller kids being able to climb up onto the top bunk whenever they want...especially if we have a play-date over for Corbin.  Now we can just unhook the ladder and store it up top and keep everyone safe.

I'm so happy with the finished result. Don't be afraid to buy ugly furniture if it is solid wood, the price is right, and the bones are good.  The Pottery Barn and Land of Nod loft bed systems similar to this are $2800 and they aren't even entirely solid wood!  Rooms to Go has them for the same price and they are an ugly ambered oak finish and you have to pay extra for the ladders and drawers and of course, shipping.  Craigslist was my friend and this bad boy is solid poplar and we got it for $200.  The bunk beds my brother and I slept on when we were kids are still being used by my nephews, and they originally belonged to my aunts.  The small price I paid to upgrade these beds to make them more safe, functional, and attractive than they were before is a worthwhile investment.  I have no doubt these suckers will last 3 generations!