Loft bed, decorating ideas solicited

[celticdragonfly]

Maggie now has her own room, with Brendan's old loft bed in it. She is sleeping there part time, and part time in the big nursery bed. The goal now is to get Jamie his own bed and move the big queensize into the guest room.

He loves to climb up into Maggie's loft, so we were thinking a loft bed for him too. Or possibly bunkbeds if that was easier to find, although the 2nd bed seems silly. We went shopping Sunday and did a bunch of hunting online too.


OW. ow ow ow. My goodness how expensive.

So now we're looking at building our own to this set of plans --->

I'm going to get help building it. What I'm wondering about is decorating it. Karl's first reaction was oh, just leave it plain and seal it. And we could do that.

But there's so FEW places I can put ornamentation in his life. There's not much in the way of "little boy decor" I'm going to want around. I can't get him beautiful fancy outfits, sigh. No pretty barrettes or hairbands. I don't want him to think I care more about his sister because she gets all the ornamentation.

So I'm wondering about decorating it. I could get out celtic knotwork designs and the woodburner, and do it up like I did my spinning wheel - probably the slowest option, but it would be nice. I could paint it a solid color, a nice cheery blue maybe. I could paint it more than one color - one for the frame and another for the ladder? Or I could paint it solid and then paint some kind of decorations on it, or decals or they do those wallpaper cutout things, or... what?

I'm hoping to get a run in to Hobby Lobby, without the kids, so I can poke around and look for ideas.

And I would really love suggestions, please.

Comments

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

As much as I love the idea of the woodburner and knotwork, that open space just begs to be a hidey hole. You could rig curtains and let him have Hide-n-seek space for now and a desk later.

I'd even consider painting the curtains to match a theme. Like do his whole room in Spaceships and find dark blue sheets and either sew or find the iron on patches in star shapes.

Something like that.

But then, I used to sit in my closet as a kid; I even put posters up and everything. I like hideyholes.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

They make curtains for such things. Way back when we bought the first loft bed, for Brendan, we bought a set of the curtains. Unfortunately, they were designed for another bed - one with a slide, and we figured if it had a slide we never would get him to sleep - and it didn't fit the bed properly.

The trouble is, I don't really sew. I have very few sewing skills, what few I have I learned on my own, and I do not currently have a working sewing machine. (I have a big sturdy one in its own table, and I suspect anyone with a CLUE on sewing machines could make it work fine, but I can't even figure out how to make it stay sat up in the table...)

The room it will be going in is blue with white clouds on the walls, and Winnie the Pooh curtains. Not that it has to match, but just for info.

[dartpoly.livejournal.com]

I sew.

[dartpoly.livejournal.com]

oh! what if you make it into a "treehouse"? bits of decorative vines, the ladders are mottled brown like a tree-trunk, and the horizontal bars have branches painted on them... with fake leaves all over. the curtain could have the "tree-trunk" on it (either painted or sewn in).

i SO have a full image of this in my head, and i'd love to help you do it!

trick is getting me out to your place on a weekend. how soon are you wanting to build his bed?

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

Ah! with a nest in the crook of a tree branch!

And if it's against a wall, a stuffie bird in the nest!

Silk leaves and a hot glue gun to give the tops bars a little fluffiness. whee!

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Wow, you guys are going off in amazing creative directions I'd never thought of. Okay, probably mostly because I don't have those skill sets.

Anything we do has to be STURDY and hold up to the depradations of a very energetic, very curious little boy.

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

Hee, also the joy of brainstorming is that we aren't the ones sitting there well after bedtime with our skirts hotglued to the carpet and burn marks on our fingers and silk leaves in our hair. 8-)

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

Oh I wish I were closer, I could probably show you what's up with the machine. (Or at least determine it's not user error.8-) )

The pre-made curtains tend to be pricey (or at least the ones I've seen are, though really, everything at Pottery Barn is pricey.) and I'm cheap!

But measure the height from the top of the inside of the top rail to where you want the hem to fall and if that's sixty inches, the selvege can be your hem and you can staple the curtain to the bed. See? No sewing at all! (too much stagework in me, I fear)

I'm thinking he'll outgrow Pooh Bear before he outgrows the bed (says the woman who finally painted over her son's nursery mural now that the "baby" is almost six) so yeah, I wouldn't go Pooh.

What does he want? Cars? Batman? Fish? Fish would be fun. There are shower curtains with tropical fish and the cling stick wallpaper cutouts. All you have to do is line 'em up.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're ever down this way, let me know. Frankly, I'd give it away. My mom recommends that one of these days I go buy a new but very basic sewing machine. Then I might could get lessons. I really would like to learn - I want to learn patchwork quilting.

Hm, wondering if stapling would be better - hard to pull out, but then you're stuck with staples in the wood - or possibly put velcro inside the cleat rails, and velcro on the curtains, but then they yank them down.

I think he'll outgrow anything really kidlike before he outgrows the bed - this is going to be a regular twin, not a toddler bed or anything. At the moment he's only 2 and still speech delayed (although we're making progress), so I have no idea what he'd want. I don't think he'd know what he'd want. Shower curtains is an interesting possibility. Although with not wanting him to outgrow it early, and not knowing what he'd want, I tend to go with ideas more vague, like knotwork and such.

Definitely not cars or batman. Not anything that's a specific character, really. (Although I could have gone with Pooh stuff. Depending on the stuff) I try to avoid character stuff, "buy me this shirt with DisneyCharacter on it!" No.

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

You know, you might go block colors.

We picked up a kiddie rockingchair with a ghastly paint job and repainted it in red blue and yellow. The back rails and rocker rails are red, the seat and crossbars are blue, everything else is yellow so no two sections that touch each other are the same color. Very bright, very chipper, very kid-like.

Then if you choose to do the bedsheet curtain trick, either with a stable gun or the tension rod, as previously suggested, bright red or blue sheets are in the outlet store's bargain bin pretty often.

Or four different shades of blue? Navy, royal, bright, and pale? Can't get any more "boy" than blue and it'll meld with the curtains until Pooh gets old and is replaced with something less toddler and more colt.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Hm, just got off the phone with my dad and a similar discussion. Maybe do the ladder rails in ascending shades of blue, darker to lighter? And maybe the verticals green. Maybe some yellow somewhere, he likes that color.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

If you do the stars thing, you could do stars or a moon in yellow.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Not DisneyPooh, ShepherdPooh, the *real* one! I don't think he'd outgrow the Shepherd one so quickly.

[kattelyn.livejournal.com]

Uhh, as much as I'm probably getting myself into trouble with this, I do sew... sorta.. and I need practice making curtains, and I'm pretty handy with a sewing machine.

As far as decorating the bed, I haven't read the entire thread but how about great big primary colours with letters and numbers and stuff stenciled all over it? like each piece of wood be a different BRIGHT primary colour. Red, blue, yellow, you get the idea. Down bottom, attach a board along the entire back of the lower part, and get some of that paint that turns walls into a chalkboard, and have that be a little play area with a chalkboard and chalk and stuff. Boys like BRIGHT primary colours, and so do toddlers... so have fun.

Here's an idea. Go get some water based paint and get them involved! Handprints, and next to that stencil in the date and whose hand it was! Everybody can get involved! Mama's hand, Daddy's hand, Maggie's hand, Jaimie's hand!

*grins* tada, instant heirloom!

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I think I'm getting pretty hooked on the design idea lower in the comments of doing it deep blue with stars and moons, using some star and moon sheets Brendan had, and generally doing a stars and rockets design decor for his room.

But I'd love to take you up on help making curtains - possibly I'll find some calico with star patterns on it, once it's built.

And I DO like the idea of the chalkboard! Thanks. I'll talk to them about that when I go get paint.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

I sorta-kinda sew. That is, I can use a needle and thread to sew a decent, if unlovely seam. And while my mother sewed sheets and curtains that way (as a child! Of four!) I'm not up to that level of snuff.

If I were going to make my own "custom" curtains for that bed, therefore, I'd buy a pair of cute twin sheets and staple them (folded over as necessary) to the inside of the bunk with a staple gun.

I like the space theme, because you can get those cool glow-in-the-dark solar system sets to glue to the ceiling!

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, I used to do that too! I thought I was just weird. Well, I am, but anyway...

I had a loft bed, too, and the space under it was half taken up (long-ways) by a bookshelf and a chest of drawers. The other half was a perfect hideout, that my mom couldn't get into!