DIY Hanging Loft Bed in a Girl’s Bedroom

Today, I’ve got a DIY project for a little girl’s room that is so fun it deserves a post all its own.

1. Pioneer Woman | 2. Apartment Therapy | 3. Life at Fire Lake Camp | 4. The Bumper Crop | 5. The Fancy

Submitted by Our Perfect Life

Hi there.

My name is Jennifer and I tell my story over at Our Perfekt Life. In any spare time I can find (wife, mom, small biz owner…!) I love to DIY! Earlier this summer I built a hanging loft bed in my daughters room. She’s 4 years old and tall for her age so she had outgrown her toddler bed, and her room presented a unique challenge with space. I wanted to save some money so instead of buying something I thought I would try out my carpentry skills by constructing a hanging loft bed. It turned out great!

As I tucked Grace into her toddler bed one night and she stretched out I noticed that there was 2, maybe 3 inches left before she would touch top to bottom.

My first thought was (obviously):
What the??? When did you get so TALL? Stop growing already!!!
But my second and slightly more rational thought was: time for a big girl bed.

My initial intentions were to use my Grandmother’s bed frame that I inherited. It goes with the vanity that I painted and set up when we moved in.

However Grace’s room presents a bit of a unique challenge. There’s a radiator under both of the windows, and those windows happen to frame the most ideal spot for a bed. Putting anything larger than her toddler bed would cover one of the radiators.

And that was when I thought of some of the hanging beds I’ve been seeing online, lately. Not only would a hanging bed solve my space challenges but it would open up her room and allow her to play and run around under the bed. Having no clue where to begin, I simply followed her directions and went straight to Ana White. I printed out the plans, headed to Home Depot and got to work.

About 3 weeks later her room was transformed:

Here’s how it all played out:
– Ana hesitated to post the plans because she thought (and I quote) “that they were too simple”. I on the other hand, thought they were just fine thank you
– It took Ana and her husband ‘about an hour’ to build it. Uh, let’s see here, it took me, hmmmmm….longer than that.
– Ana says ’2 screws per deck board per joist’. Now, let me be clear here that I wouldn’t dare doubt her plans but for me this was a bit of ‘screw overkill’.

So I built the bed and then we enlisted Uncle Randy to come over and hang it.

Here’s a view of the space under the bed. We were paranoid about the weight and didn’t trust the bed just hanging from the ropes so we added some brackets on the wall for it to ‘rest’ on. I also built the ladder specifically to also act as a brace for the bed. This baby is going nowhere.

I got the Ikea chair on Craigs List (score!), hung some scrapbooking papers (that Grace chose personally) in Ikea frames, bought the lamp and dimmer (also Ikea) and the rest was hers already.

Awesome project, Jennifer! If that unusual bed design inspired you, there’s more inspiration to be found from the Remodelaholic archives.

1. Repurposed Bed to Desk | 2. Beach House Bed | 3. Ikea Bed Transformation