Putting Bunk Beds Together
Yesterday there was no Pinterest Project. I did attempt some fabric flowers idea that worked out so much better in my head, but my trial-and-error was cut short because I had to help my husband put together bunk beds for my youngest daughters.
We found the bunk beds for free by the curb while we were walking in our neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. My husband tweaked them a little and they became twin beds in our youngest daughters' room. Partly because I wanted my daughters to get used to sleeping in their new beds, and also because we didn't have the money to finish buying the dowels and remaining screws to completely put them together as bunk beds.
My husband decided yesterday was the day. I really thought it would be as simple as lifting one bed on top of the other, making sure the dowels were in the holes to help secure it, and voila - bunk beds! Not so fast.
First my husband had to add the rails to the top bed. Easy enough. But then we needed to take the mattress off to make the bed lighter (since we were going to be lifting it up), and we probably should have done that before we added the rails. My husband fumbled (and mumbled) as he lifted the mattress up and over the rails he had just added!
Then we rotated the beds because I wanted them against a certain wall. I'm picky like that, and my husband rolls with it :) The room is small... in the bottom right of the picture above, you can actually see the post of the other bed. Not much room to rotate twin beds around.
So now the beds are rotated, and we're all set to lift the top bed up and square it up and call it a day.
Looks good, right? Not so fast. Let's zoom in to the post in the corner...
Even though three posts were level, the one in the corner was a good 1/2 inch off. When we pushed it down to level, the post on the other side popped up. It was funny, yet perplexing. We couldn't figure out what the problem was. I thought it was the dowels, so we kinda lifted up each side so we could squeeze out the dowels, then determined those weren't the problem after all. My husband thought maybe the top bed should be spun around 180 degrees. So we rotated the top bunk and put it back on again. Not the problem. The bed still teetered. My husband figured out a way to tweak the bottom bunk and add some support beams to it which pushed the bottom posts a little straighter and it remedied the problem!
Then all we had to do was add the ladder, the top mattress, and we're done! I completely underestimated this part as well! There was a little hiccup when adding the ladder. I told my husband to make sure to secure it, my husband said "To what?" and I said "The little holes on the bedrail of the top bunk, you screw the ladder to that..." Unfortunately, when we switched the top bunk around 180 degrees when trying to fix our wobbly problem, the ladder holes ended up against the wall. So we had to spin the top bed around again. I'm still giggling.
We found the bunk beds for free by the curb while we were walking in our neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. My husband tweaked them a little and they became twin beds in our youngest daughters' room. Partly because I wanted my daughters to get used to sleeping in their new beds, and also because we didn't have the money to finish buying the dowels and remaining screws to completely put them together as bunk beds.
My husband decided yesterday was the day. I really thought it would be as simple as lifting one bed on top of the other, making sure the dowels were in the holes to help secure it, and voila - bunk beds! Not so fast.
First my husband had to add the rails to the top bed. Easy enough. But then we needed to take the mattress off to make the bed lighter (since we were going to be lifting it up), and we probably should have done that before we added the rails. My husband fumbled (and mumbled) as he lifted the mattress up and over the rails he had just added!
Then we rotated the beds because I wanted them against a certain wall. I'm picky like that, and my husband rolls with it :) The room is small... in the bottom right of the picture above, you can actually see the post of the other bed. Not much room to rotate twin beds around.
So now the beds are rotated, and we're all set to lift the top bed up and square it up and call it a day.
Looks good, right? Not so fast. Let's zoom in to the post in the corner...
Even though three posts were level, the one in the corner was a good 1/2 inch off. When we pushed it down to level, the post on the other side popped up. It was funny, yet perplexing. We couldn't figure out what the problem was. I thought it was the dowels, so we kinda lifted up each side so we could squeeze out the dowels, then determined those weren't the problem after all. My husband thought maybe the top bed should be spun around 180 degrees. So we rotated the top bunk and put it back on again. Not the problem. The bed still teetered. My husband figured out a way to tweak the bottom bunk and add some support beams to it which pushed the bottom posts a little straighter and it remedied the problem!
Then all we had to do was add the ladder, the top mattress, and we're done! I completely underestimated this part as well! There was a little hiccup when adding the ladder. I told my husband to make sure to secure it, my husband said "To what?" and I said "The little holes on the bedrail of the top bunk, you screw the ladder to that..." Unfortunately, when we switched the top bunk around 180 degrees when trying to fix our wobbly problem, the ladder holes ended up against the wall. So we had to spin the top bed around again. I'm still giggling.
All finished! And the girls LOVED it!
