This bed was super simple to put together and inexpensive to build, if you don’t count the cost of all the bedding. It was a birthday gift for my now 5 year old daughter. Five. Years. Old. My little baby girl is no longer a baby anymore. She doesn’t even allow me to call her ‘my baby’. The correction comes almost as soon as the words leave my mouth. “Mom, I’m not a baby. I’m a grown-up girl.” Sigh.
Anyways, back to her new bed.
Pretty cute, huh. I have a more tweaks to make before I’m completely satisfied, but they are only little things I notice. Not the birthday girl, she loved it.
My daughter loves pink as demonstrated on these little projects, here and here, but for her new bed I wanted to create something that would grow with her without being too over the top. That is why there are hints of pink versus an all pink bed. The sheets are hot pink too, so when the bedspread is pulled back there is more of a pink explosion.
Before we moved, her bed had been a simple loft bed that I built from these plans. But I tore it down and donated the wood, so no bed frame for baby girl once we arrived in CO. This is what her room looked like before the bed (and a really good cleaning)…
Can you even spot the bed amongst all the chaos? As you can tell, she definitely needed something and the idea popped into my head a few days before her birthday that a new bed would be the perfect gift. With that decision made, my first task was to find her new bedding, this included both a comforter and sheets. After a long night of browsing online, I found what I wanted and ordered it. Lucky for me everything arrived on her birthday. Whew.
Now that bedding was on the way, it was time to find a bed plan that was both simple and inexpensive to build. I was on a serious budget and the bedding took a big chunk out of that. How can fabric sewn into a simple rectangles be so expensive? I just don’t get it. Back to the bed plan searching. My daughter would have been happy with her original bed, but I wanted something that was going to work for the next 10 years not two, which meant compromise.
I was thrilled when I came across this plan and the pure simplicity of it. As soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do. Build the basic platform and then create the look of a four poster bed. The inspiration for the four poster actually came from a photo in the plans from her original bed.
The platform was super simple to build, even with a few minor modifications. I used 4×4′s for the legs, increased the overall height (28″) and built the platform to the actual width of the mattress.
To create the the 4 posts, I used 2×2 lumber cut to 7′ in length. The create the two foot boards, a 2×2 was screwed into each end of the platform (after bed skirt was in place, so I did screw through the fabric). The head board was created with a 1/4″ thick mdf handipanel cut to length & then nailed into two 2×2 boards (you can see those in the photo below, before they were nailed together).
Once I had the headboard assembled, everything (end posts & headboard) was spray painted white. The next day I used 1″ foam along with a sparkly hot pink piece of fabric to finish off the headboard. The fabric is just pulled tight over the foam and stapled to the back of the mdf panel. Sorry I don’t have any in progress photos. I was working under a serious deadline.
The mattress and bed skirts were put into place before attaching the headboard and end posts. The polka dot portion was made from the flat and fitted sheet that came with the comforter. The flat sheet was halved lengthwise and then halved again to create two panels for each side. The end panel was cut from the fitted sheet. The solid black is the actual bed skirt that also came in the package.
After I attached the posts, the work of figuring out how to hang the drapes began. Originally, I drilled holes at the top of each post and had planned to have the rods just sit inside those holes. That plan fell through soon after I put the first rod into place. As soon as there was any movement on the bed the rod fell out. So after thinking and thinking some more, I came up with the idea of bending the original hardware that came with the rods. Using some pliers I bent each piece about 90 degrees back, so the hardware would wrap around the post and place the hook in the proper position. The panels hang great now, but I have to go back and cover the hardware in white paint. You can see some of the gold shine at the top of the two end posts in the photo below.
And, that’s about it. The princess bed was complete and the birthday girl was completely surprised by the whole thing, even though she knew I was up in her room working on a birthday surprise for a couple hours. Thankfully, she never put it all together and my son did help with keeping her distracted as I carried pieces up into her room. Lots more to do in her room like sew new curtains, repaint her pink bookshelf to white and find her a fun rug in shades of pink (of course), but I’m happy another big project is off the to-do list.
