Bedroom series #1: Kid's bedroom is the place to play with ideas

I did headboards a while ago, so a series on beds and bedrooms seem to be best next step. To kick off this series are hacks and ideas for children's bedrooms and nurseries. They are always so fun to do and the place where your creativity can go wild. Don't forget to check out tips from the mothership too. Enjoy!

Stack up a kid's bed for storage
Michael stacks three old Ikea storage units (discontinued), arranged with two at one end backed on to each other, and one at the other end to create a kid's bed, with storage below.

He says, "I just took the top of one of Ikea's cheap bunkbeds and via a few extra batons and so on, attached it on top of the storage units. Then the ladder was created from bits of the bunkbed that were left over and since these weren't quite long enough (for some reason!?) I added a mini shelf/stand at the bottom.

See more of Michael's kids bunk bed with storage.

A girly girl bedroom
Dean solves the problem of a creaky tromso bed and turned it into a girly bed for his princess.

the original Tromso

He says, "The Tromso bed that we bought for our daughter was great, but after a year, noise from moving around bothered her. She wanted no noise and a princess bed.

1. We took off the ladder and turned it over.
2. We flipped over all of the wire mesh panels to give even support to the mattress.
3. We had a trundle bed and we fitted it under the Tromso upside down. We took off the back bar that was not lined up with the other two. We also took off the front boarder bars that were used to hold the bed in place (that was now upside down and where you climbed into the bed). Traced the middle hole of the boarder bar onto the back brace bar. This then was put where the front boarder bar was. This gave the bed stability again.

4. Screwed screws now on top of each post and strung wire across. On this wire we hung up curtains to create the 'princess' effect.

Put the trundle bed underneath, and mattress on top. Noiseless and very girly.

Kura bed with chalkboard ends
Luke got a Kura bed for his young daughter Letty. However he hated the blue panels on it. So he flipped the panels the other way round so the white sides were facing out and then used aerosol chalkboard paint to turn the tall end into a chalkboard for her.


Add fun with fabrics
Ana used a Hokus quilt cover to theme her daughter's nursery. She says, "Since I didn't like the Hokus curtains that matched the set, I bought a second quilt and sewed sections of it on the bottom of my own curtains.

I also cut strips of the little lines that divide each section and sewed it along the bottom of a white crib skirt from Pottery Barn Kids.

To integrate the theme into other parts of the bedroom, I cut four individual 'characters' from the extra quilt and put them on photo frames. Cute and inexpensive!


A platform crib
Taliesan and a friend just finished the attached project.

Taliesan says, "I, like the maker of the other crib you have listed, wanted to have a more contemporary design without having to pay the huge price. so we took the Gulliver crib, cut off the legs and a bit of the ends to make the entire bottom level and built a new base for it. The base is a routered piece of 10-ply birch cut to have a 3 inch overhang. The base has a 4" skirt that's tucked 6" back from the edge of the platform. The legs are 4" tall. I wanted it to feel like the oeuf crib (pic, right) but with a little more detail.

All we did on the change table was replace the drawer fronts on a 3-drawer Hemnes dresser with the same birch and add new hardware. I also built a tray to hold the change mat on top of the dresser.


And lastly, some eye candy
It's only painting, but Ricardo and his wife did a fabulous job in their baby bedroom. In the photos you can see a Sniglar crib, a Sniglar changing table and a Rast drawer chest.



Related posts:
~ previous hacks for children