Hi everyone, and welcome back (hopefully:)!
I just built my son his first big boy bed, which happens to be a super cute house bed, and the look on his face was priceless! He loves it, and is sleeping soooo good in it! Yessssss! Not to mention, his two older brothers even want this bed! This all makes me so happy because I still am in shock that after just four months of taking up this new hobby of wood working, I’m now able to make stuff like beds! It’s been so fun to get to make all this cool stuff around my house and I can’t wait to make so much more!…So stay tuned for all the projects that I have stirring around in my head. Haha!
I had been seeing the house bed’s around on Pinterest and Instagram and I so badly wanted to make one! For my kids or for anyone! I guess it appealed to my childhood days when I used to always want my bed tent up that looked like a house. I loved that thing! Did anyone else have those bed tents!? My sister’s and I loved ours. So the little girl in me built that house bed! It turns out it’s a real winner in our house! All three of my boys love it as much as I used to love my little house bed tent!
The first step I took before building this bed was finding a good tutorial for it, and Remodelholic’s was perfect! The cut list and diagram was just what I needed. I did tweek a few things, which I’ll tell you all about in the directions. Here are her plans if you’d like to use them as well!
Okay, let’s get to building some house bed’s already, shall we?!
Materials:
- 11- 2″x4″x8′ boards
- 2- 2″x2″x8′ boards
- 5- 1″x4″x8′ boards
- 2 1/2″ self tapping screws. Buy in bulk.
- Drill (Preferably 2, so you can predrill with one size, and then actually drill in the screws with the other. Not necessary though, just makes the job quicker and easier.)
- Nail Gun with finishing nails
- 4 Joist hangers
- Chop Saw
- Wood Filler
- Sander and Sand Paper
- Paint or stain of your choice. I used Briarsmoke by Rustoleum for this bed.
Cut List:
You’ll use some of the same pieces of wood for multiple cuts.
- 6- 2×4’s at 77″
- 4-2×4’s cut at one end at a 45 degree angle at 61 5/16″. Using those same pieces of leftover wood with one angle already cut into it, cut at 30 1/16″ with another 45 degree angle. Those will be your roof pieces so they need angles on both ends.
- 1-2×4 cut at 35 1/2″ twice. So 2 of those cuts on that one board.
- 2- 2×2’s at 74″. Take 1 scrap 2×2 and make another cut at 5 1/2″. Take the other scrap 2×2 and make a cut using your 45 degree angle and cut at 10 11/16″, and then again using that angled scrap you’ll cute at 6 11/16″ using no angle. So those last two cuts will only have one angled side each.
- Cut your 1×4 boards down to 39 1/2” to make 10 boards. These will be your slats. (You May have to cut these down a little to fit. We did!)
Now that you’ve made all your cuts, lets build ourselves a house bed!
- First, we are going to make the two ends of the beds. For the first end, you’ll need two of your 61 5/16″ pieces, one 35 1/2″ board, two of your 30 1/16″ pieces. Take your two 61″ pieces and laying them with the flat side at the bottom, measure 6 1/2″ up. This is where you will attach your 35 1/2″ board. Then lay out your two roof pieces as well.
- Now you will make all your pocket holes. See below pic for where to put all of them. You can use a kreg jig or you can predrill with your drill.
- Once all your pocket holes are made, you will glue using your wood glue at each seam and then using your drill, screw in your 2 1/2″ screws.
- Now you have the first end of your bed made! You will repeat all of this for your second side.
- You can also make your chimney now by putting together your 3 pieces of 2×2. I just put two screws in the top to secure the side pieces. No one will be able to see them so you don’t need to worry about how they look.
- It is now time to fill any holes, cracks, or crevices that you don’t like, sand it all down, and paint or stain all of your wood to your liking. We finished ours in Briarsmoke by Rustoleum. (You will not need to stain your 10 1×4 boards as those are your bed slats.) Also, make sure those fit into your bed frame by laying it out, because you may need to cut those down a tad to fit. We had to do that. Keep in mind the size of your twin mattress because you don’t want to cut them down too much! That would be bad after all that work!😉
- Now that everything is stained and ready, you will need to attach your 2×2 74″ pieces onto your 2×4 77” pieces. (The Remodelholic left the 2×2’s the same length as the bed pieces, but I used Joist Hangers instead of screws to secure the bottom of the bed so I needed to leave a bit of room for those on these pieces.) Set your 2×2’s an inch and a half in on each side on the insides of your 2×4 boards, and attach using screws. I screwed in about 6 screws and then nail gunned it a bunch to add further support.
- Now that all of that is made, you’ll need to decide where you want this bed, because you are now going to assemble it, and it probably won’t make it through any doors or hallways unless yours are super wide. Take everything into the room where you want this bed. You’re getting close to finishing!!!!
- It is now time to put this bed together!!! Yay! We attached our joist hangers to the inside of our bed ends where the support boards are going to go. The 77″ board should be exactly even with your end 35″ board. Before we secured it, we used a level to make sure they were level. I also recommend only lightly screwing in a couple of the joist hanger holes until you have all 4 sides done and are happy with it. Then go back and screw the screws in tightly and add the rest of them. The below picture is the finished product when we were happy with all four sides.
- Now that your bottom frame is put together, you’ll complete the top, or the roof section. You’ll need someone to help you with this, because one person will hold the board in line while the other will screw it into place using your 2 1/2″ screws. I used two screws per board.
- Now that your roof is finished, you can add a second support beam at the bottom. We did this to help keep our son in his bed since this is his first big boy bed. You can decide on the height you like. We put ours about an inch above the mattress level so that it wouldn’t be too hard to climb over, but enough to keep him from rolling off. We attached this with two screws as well.
- Now your bed is done, we just have to attach your chimney! That is, if you still have the energy to do that part after all this work! I seriously debated it for awhile! I’m glad I did it though, because it does add character to his bed. You can attach it to whatever side of the roof you like. We put ours about 12” down from the top of the roof. We attached that with screws by screwing sideways from the side chimney into the roof.
- Last step!!!! So exciting!! And this is optional! I went around and covered all my screws/screw holes with wood filler, and then covered that with more stain.
That’s it!!! You did it! Way to go! Hopefully your kid’s like it as much as mine did! He was so excited, it was the cutest thing ever!
I would so love to see your version of this house bed! If you build this, tag me on Instagram so I can see what you created and share it! I’m so excited to see what your version looks like!
Thank you so much for coming, and I will see you back here again real soon, as I’m in the middle of building a built in barbecue and bar top right now!
