I Made A Bed!

Having three little people 4 and under is quite a challenge and bedtime is no exception. Sleep is extremely elusive with toddlers and babies in the house. With their uncanny ability to wake and sleep alternately through the night, I seem to have developed parental narcolepsy! I have tried several options over the years and this one might just be the best so far, for my little family. 

The two older boys have a room to themselves and I share with the two little ones. I did have a single bed so I could fit the beds and a cot all in one room. It everyone stayed in their own beds this worked like a dream. Unfortunately, that wasn't always the case and some mornings there would be 4 of us packed in Tetris style. As you can imagine, this didn't make for a great night for any of us!

After deliberating for quite a while and talking to a few people about it, I decided to make a bed to fit us all. I measured up the space and it was 6ft x 6ft 6. That's a pretty big bed!

I nipped off to Wickes for some wood. My Dad ended up coming over to help advise me so I got strong planks. I bought 15  8ft long softwood planks and a bag of 2inch screws. Its amazing thats all it takes to create a family size bed!

I measured all the planks out with my little helper. This took a while as he wanted to mark all the planks too. Cutting the right ones became a bit of a challenge!
Luckily they were all the same length so I sanded the ends off and any rough edges before starting the complicated bit. This required coffee and a custard cream!

Cutting the slots in each plank to form the base was a bit of a headache. Not being one for precision anything, this was the hardest bit for me. I was fed up after just measuring to be honest! Luckily, I measured them all right and only had to make them a little deeper. It could have been a disaster otherwise.
Once they were all slotted together the 8 slats had to be screwed on and the bed was all finished. Not being great with drilling straight I had a bit of help. I wouldhave been gutted to get so close to finishing and mess it all up.

So there it is, My homemade family sized bed. Now I just have to save up enough for a mattress as it has two singles on it at the moment. The beds go from wall to wall now which is ace. Last night the boys stayed at their Dad's and Squish fell out of his single bed as he's got used to lots of space!

** The radiator in this room is never used as it's the baby room and has so many people in it never gets cold even in winter!