Sweet Dreams on a DIY Bed

Hi All! Welcome back to me actually blogging about home things. I know its been awhile but I just wanted to share with you guys our new bed. We (and by that I mean Jose) constructed this wonderful new platform bed from Ikea Expedit bookshelves.

We modeled our idea after this pottery barn bed:

www.potterybarn.com

However at the $1000 price tag it wasn't really a feasible option for us right now. That's where good old Ikea comes in to play. We had our eye on a bed at Ikea but when we went to the store decided that wasn't quite the right fit. Then my super smart hubby sat down in Ikea with a note pad and worked out the logistics of our dream bed. (Aren't I so lucky!)

I unfortunately was not around to capture all the pictures of said bed making so here is a small collage of what Jose snapped while building our bed.

And since I do not have visuals I will just walk you through the very simple process that was building our platform bed.

Materials: 

4 Expedit double shelves
(apparently Ikea does not have online the one we bought) 

3 Expedit single shelf

www.ikea.com

2 sheet of 7/16th plywood

2 4x4 for the "legs"

Drywall screws 

Rug Pad

Step 1: Decide how big you would like for the bed to be. For instance ours is a queen.

Step 2: To save you some time if you are looking to build a queen bed we used four expedit double shelving units and three single expedit unit to build this bed.

Step 3: Assemble the Expedit shelves according to the Ikea directions.

Step 4: Once you have those assembled cut the plywood sheets to equal 80 inches x 60 inches (this is the size for a queen bed.) You will have to measure your mattress if you want a different size.

Step 5: Space out your Expedit shelves (two doubles and one single on each side and the single at the bottom) to the size that you need (80x60 for our purposes).

Step 6: Attach the plywood to the Expedit shelves with your drywall screws.

Step 7: Then position your 4x4 braces where needed, every 11 inches on center, which might be overkill but you can never be too safe.

Step 8: Screw through plywood into your 4x4 braces.

Step 9: Throw your rug pad down and put your mattress back on and you are good to go.

I apologize for the sub standard pictures. These were taken in a rush and we desperately need to clean our room. So that prohibited getting better shots. (I promise to retake these when we have better light and a clean room.)

As you can see a very sturdy platform storage bed does not have to cost thousands of dollars. Also you may notice in the pictures we used a white sheet and paint to cover the plywood so it would not show. When we googled how to DIY this bed people suggested using a sheet to make it look nicer and not have the orange lines on the plywood showing through.

Hope you enjoyed this post. It feels good to be getting back to home stuff again. I am sure with the bambino/a you are going to be inundated with home projects from now until May. Especially nursery projects. (Eek! I can't wait. Just typing that makes me excited.)