This was my first significant wood working project, but it turned out great! I built this for my 8 year old daughter Claire and she (and all of her friends) love it. I built a simple ladder (thanks google for the ideas) to make it easier for her to get up top (a plunge router and a good protractor made that job straight-forward). I also got inspired to hard-wire in two LED under-counter lights that I purchased at Lowes along with some lamp wire and a male plug. One light over the couch on one end and one over her desk at the other end. They actually produce very nice light (I was uncertain about using LEDs). I hid the wires using thin plastic conduit that had an adhesive backing and I painted it the same color as the dark purple frame. I’ve never installed lights like that before, but it turned out to be really simple. My wife added a curtain with a cheap $5 dollar rod we bought at Walmart to help hide the computer and give her a little hide-away.

I used a two-tone purple paint scheme with dark purple on the main frame features (legs and side-boards) and an almost white-purple (same as her walls) for the supporting cross members to make the cross members disappear a little in the background and make the frame stand out (and make the room look less full because it’s such a large structure in her small room). Originally I was going to stain the bed, but I used a soft pine wood and I just couldn’t get the stain to go on light enough and I had problems w/ blotches – even used wood conditioner to prevent this. So I gave up and painted. Ultimately, I am much happier that I painted because I think it works better with the colors in her room. The other important thing I learned: use shellac to cover up those knots! I could see them bleeding through the primer the day after I primed them. After I applied shellac, no more bleed through.

It’s a simple design, but I’m impressed with how great it looks and how sturdy it is (it’s build like tank!). My son is now convinced he needs one too
Thanks!
Gary

Thanks for sharing these photos with us, Gary. You did a wonderful job and we’re sure many of our other customers will appreciate the tips you shared too.

Click on the pictures below to enlarge them. For more pictures of customer’s loft beds, visit out photo gallery.

“What kind of little girl doesn’t want to have her own little house?
A house in which she can play with food in her little kitchen…
A house in which she can slide down playfully after a long night’s rest.
A house in which she can be herself and have the time of her life along with a room that resembles a humble paradise in a child’s dream. Well, that is what I have created for my little one using only the OP Loftbed, a little imagination, determination, lots of creativity, and most of all, the desire to fulfill a little girl’s dream.

The plans were quite sturdy and very easy to follow! It just took motivation among adding a little flowers, spice, and everything nice to create a unique piece of furniture that is set to make any girl’s dream playhouse a reality. I have never seen my 3 year old girl so happy!”

Wow, Adriana! This is an incredible bed. Thanks for sharing these photos with us!

Click on the pictures below to enlarge them. For more pictures of customer’s loft beds, visit out photo gallery.

“This is my 6 year olds loft bed. I used the tall-medium, full size loft bed plans. He absolutely LOVES this bed. I attached rope lights around the top and down the stair rail that he can operate from a switch at the head of the bed. I built stairs to ease the climb up and down. Flip chairs under the bed for extra seating or an extra sleep space. l mounted lights under the bed as well and I covered the X braces with dry erase board. This was lots of fun to make. My son had great fun decorating it with Mario decals and I think this bed is sturdy enough to hold a car!!! Thanks for the great plans!”

Excellent creativity and craftsmanship, Robin! Thanks for sharing these photos with us!

Click on the pictures below to enlarge them. For more pictures of customer’s loft beds, visit out photo gallery.

We moved our family of 3 into a one bedroom apartment entirely voluntarily on a mission to simplify our lives.

Your OP Loft Bed plans made it work wonderfully (no tripping over eachother in the 10 x 12 bedroom with floor space to spare)! We looked at traditional bunk beds, I’m not sure I’d be comfortable climbing up there for story time. This way, we got to keep our current mattresses and have something we’re comfortable climbing on and sleeping under.

We made it out of cedar because it was surpisingly cheaper than pine. We used carriage bolts with the heads spray painted black to soften the edges (for asthetic and safety purposes). We put a flat clear coat on as a finish and added one handle, horizontally at the foot of the mattress.

Our original plan was to slide our mattress under length-wise, but in the chaos of the move, I forgot to mention that to the carpenters (my husband and his father). It would work if we ditched the box spring and opted for a futon base, since the queen sized mattress is flexible enough to addapt to the missing inch.

I’m sure you can imagine our son’s favourite way to get OUT of bed with such a handy landing pad.

Thanks for being awesome!

~Laurie in Milton, Ontario

Joe in Austin, TX

See images of my son’s new full size loft bed. Bought the full size medium height plans and me, my wife, and son finished in about 3 weekends. Most time spent on it was staining and adding two coats of polyurethane. Built the short leg pieces a little taller than plans due to my son has a 13″ pillow top mattress. Then had to raise the guardrails up some too. It makes his small bedroom have more space and he loves hanging out underneath it.

~Joe in Austin, TX

Hi,

I live in Arlington Heights, IL. I am a 48 year-old cheapskate of a Mom with a great deal of determination and a slight knack for handiness. We live in a home with very little storage space and have 4 very tall boys, each weighing about 200 lbs. Two of the boys share a bedroom, and when they came home from college we had no place to store their luggage, college linens, books, etc. I was at my wits end & decided loft beds would take care of our storage issues. After researching various online plans, looking at photos & reading customer comments I decided OP Loftbeds seemed the sturdiest (sturdier than anything I could purchase in a store for a fraction of the cost). We have 8 foot ceilings so I bullt the medium size twin XL loftbeds (the first one I built is shown in these photos). I decided not to build the optional headboard shelf. I used a power hand drill, not a drill press, and borrowed a neighbor’s miter saw & table saw. A dresser fits beneath each, along with all their college stuff, laundry hamper, etc. Total cost was $200 per bed which included the sand paper, foam brushes, stain, steel wool (best thing to sand stain between coats), poly, and all the lumber, plans & hardware. My tip: use a shoe string to get sawdust out of your drilled holes before staining. When you’re ready to stain, use another dipped in stain to work stain into the drilled holes for a more finished look. Thanks for these amazing plans!

Joanna Metzger
Arlington Heights, IL

Click on the pictures below to enlarge them.

Thanks for sending us your kind words about our plans, the pictures, and your tips, Joanna! It looks like you did an excellent job. We’re glad your boys are enjoying their new loft beds!

Visit our photo gallery to see more pictures of loft beds from our customers.

This twin high loft took about a month for me to build from start to finish. The plans were easy to follow. My 5 year old had trouble with the side supports so, I built a custom ladder. As you can see from the pic I used the guardrail modification for a side guard and added an extra side rail for aesthetics. My Hubby and I were a bit concerned about the wing-nuts being a safety issue but after we put it together we only replaced the wing nuts with regular nuts for the sleeping area of the bed and turned the bolts so that the bolt head faced in and the nut faced out. As you can see the lower wing-nuts provide nice ‘hooks’ for robes and toys . After my husband creatively painted the hardware it looked good. I added a foot guard from leftover plywood for added safety at the ladder end. The paint is zero VOC and low VOC in semi-gloss. I hand-painted the name and coordinating flower design. Now the bottom is a reading nook, but will evolve to a study as she gets older.

The pine wood only cost about $120, hardware kit was from OP Loft (under $50-way cheaper than local hardware store), the majority of the cost was from the bedding ($50), mattress ($100) and paint and brushes, sandpaper, wood filler, caulk, extra hardware and wood ($150).

My husband thought that the work involved might have been worth the extra cost to have someone else build it. I, on the other hand, have minimal skills and found the experience enjoyable and empowering (I also did about 90% of the work). This bed is STURDY! It does NOT MOVE! I had fun making it, I can take pride in my work and my daughter LOVES IT!

- Danielle – Fort Worth, TX

- Thanks, Jerry, Joseph (age 12) and Jeffrey (age 6) of Pennsylvania.

We opted to use regular nuts instead of wing nuts. Some of the tolerances were a bit tighter, so I used a locknut instead of a nut and a lockwasher. We found using the nuts with a wrench and socket was easier than turning a bunch of wingnuts by hand or using a pair of pliers on them.

FYI – we saw a lot of other loft kits, including one sold by Lowes, and they were very flimsy comparatively. I don’t know that I would have felt secure with them. I pulled and yanked on the OP loft once my son and I had it finished, and it just won’t budge.

- Craig

null

When most people think of bunk beds, they think of those shaky, wobbly twin-size beds they had as a child. But grownups sometimes need bunk beds too and often a twin size just won’t fit the need. That’s OK here at OP Loftbed because we offer bunk bed plans that can accomodate full size, or double, mattresses.

 Jeanne sent us these pictures and says, ”We purchased your plans and hardware, and my husband built this full-sized bunk bed for my daughter and her roommate at college. Her room was designed for one occupant, so the bunk beds really came in handy. The beds are extremely sturdy. My husband told my daughter if there is a tornado or hurricane, that she wouldn’t be going anywhere if she hung onto the bed!!”

One of the things we especially liked was the customized headboard shelf he made. Here is a picture of it. 

null

You can see this bunkbed and dozens of other loft beds and bunk beds built by satisfied customers in our photo gallery. If you’ve built an OP Loftbed loft bed or bunk bed and would like us to share your craftsmanship with the world, just send a picture and any comments you may have to gallery@oploftbed.com. If you haven’t yet built your own bed, you can purchase plans for only $10!

For those of you that prefer still images, they even documented much of the project in a Flickr photo gallery. After the film production, they even added a custom desk to the loft bed supported by chains–you have to see it!