There's 'making your bed' and then there's actually making your own bed from wood, glue, screws and hard work...
Step 1 get the kids to help you create a mock-up using lollipop sticks to explore what might work and how strong/weak the frame shapes are...
The idea of the six-legged frame was to maximise unhindered space beneath it. It did seem a bit risky though! So we took the safer option and opted for making two identical frames with four legs. This had the added advantage that the beds could potentially be moved to individual bedrooms in future. All the beds we looked at in the shops were either too high (kids can't sit up without hitting the ceiling) or too low (couldn't use the space beneath for anything other than storage cabinets). If you have higher ceilings than we do then lots of beds on the market suit just fine. For our room 1.3 m clearance beneath was the best compromise...
Having assembled the first frame successfully it was time to cut to size the 18 mm thick engineered board that would support the mattress. Load it up with mattresses and start on the second frame...
The turbo-screws are a joy to use - no need for pilot holes and no risk of splitting the wood.
Got the wood from B&Q and the 18 mm thick engineered panels I had cut to the exact measurement in-store which was super accurate and neat, and saved me hours.
I used the off-cuts to form a very sturdy ladder, and added the lanterns...
The kids were excited to get testing it out. You can see that there wasn't much bracing at this point to stop the frames from swaying. However, the triangular 'chocks' that i had added to stiffen the corners were doing a pretty solid job and I felt that i would get away without any bracing in the short term. However, with time the joints would probably loosen up and the swaying might get more noticeable ... so i added an X brace to two sides of each bed frame so that the minimal look would be maintained but the extra stiffening would be present.
The kids thought that adding some vines or curtains would create a great den beneath the beds so we looked for something suitable. We found some fake hanging plants at Ikea and a superb forest canvas wall-art. To top it off we thought we'd add some real plants in the foreground to complete the scene...
The above picture doesn't do it justice because it doesn't convey the 3D parallax of foreground vines and background wall art that you experience when moving. Here's a video clip to show the effect ...
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