Ikea Day Bed Hack
When we built our house I knew the loft above the garage was going to be a hangout space for the kids we still had at home and our ever growing brood of grand children and that we would need some extra beds. We had a really great push out on one side and I fully planned to have a built in of two day beds instead of a couch. However the heating in the loft is from the boiler and a section of register needed to go the length of the wall in that location so I needed to rethink the layout. I decided to put it underneath windows on the east side of east side which wasn’t as wide as the other section and required some changes from my original plan. Initially I wanted to build two trundle beds with a console in between to allow for a pathway in between to access the beds when pulled out and also to have a side table of sorts and have a division between each bed.
I started measuring out the area and realized in this location I would not have enough room to have a console in between, altered my design and started working with a carpenter to bring my idea to life. The quote was waaaaay more than I ever thought it would be so I started to rethink other possibilities and thats when I thought what if I can find two prebuilt trundle beds that could be trimmed out to fit in this spot. The first problem was every trundle bed was too high to fit underneath the two windows. I immediately thought of Ikea because they do such a great job of maximizing small spaces so went on line and looked to see if they had anything that would fit and that’s when I found the Brimnes bed frame. Now it wasn’t a trundle but it was a twin size that pulled out to a queen size and had two large storage drawers underneath this was going to work perfectly! I just needed to alter it slightly as it had the frame on all three sides. Fortunately all three sides were individually attached, so I had the two end rails cut down to level with the top of the base slats and even with the front panel. This way it would be one continuous surface when not pulled out into a queen bed.
The length of both beds now attached to each other did not extend the full width of that wall space so I added a small side table stitch to each end to the height of the existing frame to the wall, this also gave it the look of a custom built in which was what I really wanted in the first place. The end pieces were built out of MDF and I painted them with Benjamin Moore trim paint that has a great levelling property and you couldn’t tell the difference between the manufactured bed and the additions giving it a complete custom built in. The cost of the beds were $600.00 and the cost of the alterations and additions was another $400.00 so for a $1000.00 I had a builtin bed set up that sleeps a whole pile of kids and is a comfy spot for movie night!
Much Love, A. xo
