I have a 4 year old and 2 year old. They share a bedroom and my wife and I were looking for a design to make a lofted bed for our 4 year old. I found the Low Loft Bed plans on here and went with it. I built it slightly higher than the plans say and went 5 feet high overall.
But with that, we were able to turn it into a bunk bed for my 2 year old by repeating the steps for the top bunk on the bottom one! A little paint, and we were all set!
I had followed the plans for the low lofted bed and went to the local big box store and got everything I needed. I added some cheap rope lighting below to top bunk for reading while on the bottom bunk.
This was what I started with from using the low lofted bed plan.
All in all, I had about $150 in this project including the materials for the top AND bottom bunk. The paint was a few dollars more, but we had some of it already. The price is to build the bed and doesn't include the mattress cost.
It was about 2 weekend project of time total. I built it once, painted it, took it apart, moved it inside, and reassembled it.
I just made it slightly higher than the original plans called for and put a bottom bunk on it.
I followed the plans with 1×4, 2×4, 2×6, and 4×4 with some hardware.
I used lots of paint to get good coverage and I sanded the cuts to round the edges over.
This bed is super sturdy and comfortable. We had over 600 pounds of people laying the the bottom bunk and the think didn't even think of moving!
