The Great Bed Re-Build

Bryan used Kee's old crib to make her toddler bed.

It seems like yesterday that Bryan built Kee's toddler bed, but she has out grown it.  We knew it was time to for her to have a big girl bed.  Normal people go to the store haha, but you should know by now that is just not how we roll.

We decided to go with a trundle bed.  In the fervor of room re-design, I headed over to Pinterest (this project really made me love Pinterest by the way) and created a board that you can check out here.

Material wise, we had Feather's bed.  It was the bottom part of a long ago purchased Wal-Mart bunk bed set.  It really had seen much better days and was also due for replacement.  We also had wood that had been torn out of an old church in town.

Adding slats to the trundle...

First, we decided to build the trundle.  We built a frame, then used slats for supports. The slats are fairly thin, so we had to go back and add reinforcements.  Once this was complete, we attached casters.  The casters were the only items purchased for this build. :).

Sanded Headboard with Risers Attached

With the trundle complete, it was time to revamp Feath's bed.  I broke it apart and sanded off the varnish, stickers, and marker that had accumulated over the years.  In my original design, I had planned to redo her headboard, making a bookshelf.  However we were running out of time, so we kept the original head board, and foot board.

Extension Added!

We ended up adding a solid wood piece in the middle of the bed slats. 

Close up of a Riser before finishing

Next, Bryan made risers with end caps to give the bed enough height for the trundle to clear.

Finished!

By the time we finished this, I had developed an intense loathing for paint, and had fallen in love with how all the different woods were working together.  So we finished it with linseed oil.

I really wish that I had a before picture of Feath's bed. Oh the difference a few changes can make!

One thing that I would recommend if you are wanting to make your own trundle, would be to use a sheet of plywood.  You could either attach it to a frame, or attach casters and be finished.

Either way this is a fairly simple project.  The most time consuming part was sanding down all of the parts of the old bed.   Re-purposing things sometimes takes a lot longer than building something from scratch, but the character of the finished product, and money saved is well worth the effort.


-- Jess