Sissy has been asking me to loft her bed for as long as I can remember. My response has always been the same – I’d loft her bed if she was willing to move from a full sized bed to a twin. The idea of losing all that extra sleeping room was normally enough to table the idea for at least a few weeks. That is, until I built a loft for Potato Boy last year to free up a little more space in his room (his room is quite a bit smaller and he was already sleeping in a twin bed). At that point, the temptation was too great – Sissy was willing to trade her bed for a loft. I had to stick to my end of the deal.

I had spent some time looking at different designs before building Potato Boy’s loft. I ended up taking four or five different plans and melting them into one that would work for me. Since it seemed to work well for him, I made a couple of small changes and stuck to what worked.

The loft is mainly 2×4 and 2×6 pine lumber that has been sanded smooth. I was able to do all of the sanding and most of the assembly before I brought any of the lumber in the house. Once the pieces where in Sissy’s room it only took a few bolts and a handful of screws and everything was complete – except for the paint – which we’ll get done in the upcoming weeks. Sissy was too eager to start sleeping in it to wait another couple days for us to paint it.

While I didn’t get the loft painted yet, I did take the time to rework and repaint the chest of drawers Sissy had in her room. Several knobs and one of the drawer guides were in need of replacement, so while I had everything apart I covered up the drab tan with a couple coats of bright white.

I forgot to take a “before” picture, but you can get the idea from this old shot of Sissy’s room. If you look closely, you’ll notice the top two drawers didn’t close completely at that point. I had to rebuild the guides to get things to close again.

Sissy’s big on “Paris-themed” items for her room right now, so the DW even found a couple pull knobs with the Eiffel Tower printed on them.

It still amazes me what a can of paint and a little time will do. But it has created a problem – once the DW saw how this little project turned out she added 2 night stands and a dresser to the list – good thing there’s plenty of winter left.