A No-Power-Tool Needed Platform/Captain's Bed in Minutes!

Okay, so my creative Hubby wanted me to do a quick post highlighting his ingenius bed building idea. Since building this bed here, we needed to re-vamp the platform. While it was a supportive bed design, the wood rubbed and creaked on all of the different joints, which drove my sensory spouse crazy. His subsequent obsessing about the noise was enough to take me to Crazy-ville with him! We could have gotten some sort of traditional bed frame to put within the frame of our headboard and footboard (In the previous post I explain how our platform was basically free-standing and the boards and rails were purely aesthetic), but then I would have lost all of that glorious storage space underneath the heightened frame. Hmmm...

Then one day while wandering the aisles of the local home improvement store, it hit him like a ton of, well, shelves!  That's right, shelves! As in Sterlite shelves like these ones here. He took the measurements, and realized that if he put those together in a single layer formation under sheets of MDF, then it should make a great platform with storage included!  He bought two sheets of MDF and asked the store employee to cut them  into the proper dimensions for a queen sized bed. He bought two sets of the shelves, and came home with an optimistic air.

He arranged the shelves into pairs (one slab on bottom, one set of posts, and one slab on top). He arranged them in a 3x2 formation  so that I could slide my totes and boxes in from the sides.

 

He topped these with sheets of non-skid shelf liner before laying the MDF on top with a slight gap between (to avoid that dreaded rubbing), and then the bed skirt and mattress!  Added tip: A King-sized flat sheet is the PERFECT length for a bed this height! It touches the floor on each side exactly with no alterations needed! 

WOO HOO!

Perfection!

Now, just like my other bed, this one does sit higher than your average bed frame to accomodate the storage. A trade-off that is totally worthwhile in my opinion. Besides, there is just something that feels regal when you are truly "climbing into bed"! 

Because this idea can be so versatile, we've realized that it's kind of like the Lego version of bed frames! Since building this one for us, he also replaced the squeaky slat design in our son's hand-me-down captains bed by putting a single row of shelves within that frame.  We also plan to replace my daughter's regular twin bed with a shelving one to increase her storage. She doesn't have any kind of headboard or footboard, so it will be completely free standing with decorative storage totes to be her 'drawers', and I'm thinking of dressing up the shelves with decorative duct or washi tape. More on that later...

Blessings,
Hillary At Home