Loft bed to 4 poster bed

Photo: IKEA.com

Materials: Tromso

Description: Our 7 yr old daughter who loved her loft bed when she was 5 now wanted a more "grown up" bed on the ground. At first my husband and I considered just cutting the legs down. We had done that already because the house we live in now didn't have the ceiling clearance for the full height of the loft. But she wanted a bed curtain too. Which we thought of just attaching it to the ceiling as we have seen others do. But the idea came to me to just FLIP the bed upside down! My husband LOVED the idea and it took literally only 2 hours for the full move.

Materials used:
Tormso Loft bed
Drill
Metal 1/2" drill bit
PVC pipe & elbows


1.Remove the side slat where the ladder attaches.

2.Move the longer back two support braces and use one of those to replace the side slat that was removed. Because that is where the mid-beam is screwed into to support the mattress.

3.Drill out a hole for the mid-beam in that support as shown.

4.We purchased three 1.5"elbow joints (since it was only curtained on 2 sides we didn't need it all the way around)and 1"PVC pipe

5.Cut three 5" pieces of the PVC pipe to insert into the legs of the bed and connect to the elbow joint.

6.Cut the PVC pipe the length needed for the sides needed and insert into the elbow joints.

We did get some rubber feet for the bottom of the bed so the floor was not damaged. The curtain is simply draped fabric with star curtain clips from Ikea. They no longer carry them. I really wish they did. The just clipped right over the fabric and PVC pipe and it was DONE! NO SEWING which cut the time down too.

~ Susie & Nate Clancy, United States

More hacks on IKEAHackers.net

Bunk Bed to Loft Bed

Materials: Tromso Loft Bed, Hacksaw

Description: The Tromso Loft bed was too tall for the kids room and I always loved the idea of have a loft bed over another bed in an L shape and then adding a dresser underneath, kind of like the bed from Room & Board that cost $1400.

I decided to literally "Hack" the bed in half.

~ chris dichiaro, brooklyn, ny

Tromso got flipped, turned upside-down

Materials: Tromso, philips screwdriver

Description: No longer wanting to sleep while so high, I wondered if I could flip my Tromso bed and only use the top part, but upside down. It looked possible from my initial inspection.

Note that the mattress base was in four pieces, supported by cross-members.

So to get it to a bed state:

- Flip the whole bed completely. Helped to have an extra person here.

- Remove the legs. Because they way it's built, you pretty much have to take the whole bed apart. So, do that. Put the mattress base aside.
- Screw the frame back together without the legs. Do what you want with the plastic feet / hole covers.
- Attach the four pieces of the mattress base. This will trap you inside the bed (see picture) so make sure you didn't put the escape hole against a wall.

And done. Not too hard at all. Now I have a proper bed to host the ladies with some storage underneath. It can easily be bed-skirted if you don't like the metal bars look. Also, I can imagine using two of the legs and some fabric to create a headboard without too much trouble.

See more of the upside down Tromso bed.

~ Angus Woodman, Newfoundland, Canada