Planning and Designing a Built-in Bunk Bed

As most of you know, in just a few short months our family will be leaving our current house and moving into the one we’re currently building. We never really put it up for sale, but we ended up getting a contract on it just a few weeks before we started our new build. It was truly God’s plan the way it worked out and we have become wonderful friends with the soon to be new owners.

A Fun Project for a Wonderful Family

A couple of weeks ago, Tori and Will, the new owners, came over to look at a few things. Having to wait several months for your new home isn’t that fun, but at least coming over periodically gives them a reminder of what they love about the home. They are also starting to think about furniture placement and how they are going to decorate. I know they are very excited and have a lot of new ideas on how the can make this house their own home!

While spending some time with them last week, Tori expressed a vision she had for one of the upstairs bedrooms. They have three children: West, Eva, and Harvin. The twin girls, Eva and Harvin, are twenty-one months old and will be sharing one of the bedrooms. Can’t you just see them making so many memories bunking together for many years? Yes, and what better way to do this than to have a cool built-in bunk bed.

After discussing all of the details, we agreed to take on the project. Since we are still living here, it made sense to go ahead and complete it. This would make it easier for the both of us. Now for the fun part of making their vision to come to life!

Inspiration

Tori had already been searching Pinterest and Instagram before she had met with us. We used these inspiration pictures to draw lots of ideas from. There were a few basic must haves that she wanted going into the design, but she is trusting us to make it look amazing!

Here is a bunk bed that we’re using for inspiration. The over all look will be very similar to this, but instead of wood, we’ll be using black metal for the railing and ladder.

The Design

Tori envisioned a queen size platform bed for the bottom area. This would allow the girls to have easy access to the bed and would also allow them to be close in order to bond at such a young age. Knowing they will grow up, she wanted a loft area for a future twin size bed. This would be great for a little separation down the road.

In the mean time, the loft will act as another little play and reading area.

The other request Tori had was making sure the railing tied in with the railing on our stairwell. This bedroom is very close to stairs and she wanted a seamless transition into this room. I thought it would be a wonderful idea considering the company that made our stair railing is local and great to work with.

Now it was time for us to get busy planning out the entire project and design. Henry created a 3D model to make it easier for us all to visualize, not to mention since he modeled it to scale, he already has all of the measurements that he can easily access.

Here’s the room after we moved all of our daughters furniture out to prepare for the project.

And here is a visualization of the bunk bed in the room:

As you can see, we added a few features that we thought would be helpful down the road and even give it a nice design touch. There will be a cool wall sconce on each side of the bed, possibly in an antique brass finish.

Since the bed will be covering up a couple of outlets, we’ll be adding new ones that have usb ports included. This will be great for reading at night and also very helpful as the girls get older.

Shiplap will be added to the back wall and wrap around the two sides. The right side of the bed will include built-in shelves for storing books and toys.

We’ll paint the entire bed the same as our wall color, but in a satin finish. The railing and ladder will be black metal to match our current stair railing.

This project is going to be so fun! In a couple of weeks we’ll be posting a reveal and a tutorial.