Landon’s “Big Boy” Bed

Since we don’t currently have a house to work on daily, and we now have some “free time,” I figure I’d use some of this time to write a post or two on miscellaneous projects.

Back in February, right around the time Landon turned 3, we decided to take the plunge and put him in a “big boy” bed. Yes, we waited until he was 3 years old, and yes, we realize that’s a little later then most parents would make the transition. However, I was told by several (very wise) parents that unless the kiddo is climbing out the crib, keep them in it for as long as possible! In addition to this advice we chose to keep him in a crib longer because we wanted to time the transition right. We’ve found with Landon (as I’m sure is the case with many toddlers) that too many things changing or happening at once only makes things worse for them…and for the parents.

Right after Landon turned 2 we welcomed little Colette into the world. Boy was that a shocker to Landon! It took him a solid 2 months to realize she would be sticking around for good. Fortunately, he now refers to her as “my baby, Colette” and “my best friend, Colette.” Anyways, enough of that adorableness, once he adjusted to Colette we decided to focus on potty training. Pavlo and I both agreed that getting Landon potty trained was far more important then getting him out of a crib. By Christmas time Landon was fully potty trained so a couple of months later we tackled his “big boy” bed.

When searching for the type of bed I wanted for Landon my heart was set on getting him a captains bed similar to this one

both of my brothers have them and I love how they look and how they add so much storage. We definitely weren’t lacking storage in Landon’s room but with two growing kids you can never have too much extra space!

During the holidays we mentioned to family that we were planning on transitioning Landon from a crib and were looking at captain beds. That’s when my aunt had a pretty brilliant/generous suggestion. She offered us one of the beds to a set of bunk beds she owned with the freedom to do whatever we wanted with it’s frame! Of course, we immediately asked ourselves, “Hey selves, why buy a captains bed when you can build one using this FREE bed?” Needless to say we jumped at the opportunity. Gotta love family!

When we went to pick up the bed we were all in agreement to swap the headboard of one for the footboard of the other. Since both of the beds in the bunk bed set had a matching headboard and footboard (for the obvious reason of preventing the bed from sloping!), we swapped so each bed had a higher headboard then footboard. I’m making it sound far more complicated than it really is! At any rate, here’s the bed after we picked it up:

The first thing we did was to paint the bed in the same color brown paint as the stripe around Landon’s bedroom walls

Next we picked out these drawers at Ikea

they’re actually drawers for closet organizers but we were optimistic that, with the proper framing and slides, they would be the perfect drawers for under the bed.

Speaking of framing, that was the next step! Using 1 by 2’s Pavlo created a frame underneath the bed providing him a place to install the drawer slides. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around to take pictures when Pavlo completed this step but here is the quick summary.  The slides attached to the underside of each side of the drawer.  One set for each drawer was attached to the end of the bed (one slide at the head and one at the foot board).  One 1 by 2 was used to support the other side of each slide at the center of the bed.  These other two slides were placed and secured on top of the 1 by 2 running down the middle, parallel to the drawers.  Two other 1 by 2’s were secured at the two ends of the 1st 1 by 2 and attached to the head and foot board to prevent the slides from shifting while the drawers were opened and closed.

After the framing and slides were set up, the drawers were tested. Once determined as secure their face fronts were built. Pavlo used a piece of polar wood (painted in the same brown as the rest of the bed) and trimmed it out with pre-primed pine. Next came the drawer pulls, also from Ikea.

Up to this point the bed looked a little something like this

Pavlo put the pulls on prior to the final paint job so that he could test the drawers to be sure they sat level and didn’t rub against each other.

Then Pavlo used furniture grade plywood to create panels for the bottom of the headboard and footboard to hide the drawer framing underneath the bed.

Last but not least was the final coat of paint and the completed bed looks like this

One thing I don’t think I mentioned was that part of the reason we jumped on my aunt’s offer to take the bed was because it came with a matching side rail given that it was a bunk bed. That could be a high fall! It worked out perfectly to have this matching side rail since we knew our little man would be prone to a few falls. They do sell rails specifically for transitioning children but I’m so happy to have the coordinating one.

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