Furniture Plans: Twin-over-Twin Flat Panel Bunk Bed

Introduction

Twin bunk beds have been on our to-do list for quite awhile now, but we were kind of just dragging our feet. Finally, when our three year old stopped sleeping through the night because she had outgrown her toddler bed, we decided to get to work. When we designed these beds, we wanted something that would grow with our girls. We knew that eventually they will want their own rooms and eventually they won't want bunk beds anymore. With that in mind, Kristen got to work drawing up a design for bunk beds that can actually convert to separate headboards and footboards for separate individual twin beds. Below is the finished product. I have put step -y-step instructions with all the tools, materials,and instructions needed to build your own twin-over-twin bunk bed.

Finished Photo

Finished Photo

Image of how the beds will look separated. 

Estimated Cost: $400*

*Depends on where you buy the wood. We purchased the dimensional lumber, plywood and paint supplies from Home Depot and bought the crown molding and MDF top cap from Stock Building Supply (a lumber yard here in Utah). We bought the bun feet from an online store (Osborne Wood Products) because they were way cheaper and had a huge selection. They did charge a lot in shipping, but it was still cheaper than getting it locally.

Dimensions:

The overall dimensions are 7' 4 1/4" long by 3' 11" wide by 6' 6" tall. It fits perfect in our girls' room because we have 8-foot ceilings.

3D view

Elevation view

Tools

• Table Saw
• Miter Saw
• Jig Saw or Band Saw to cut curves on ladder
• Router with 3/8 inch roundover bit
• Orbital Sander
• Pneumatic Nail Guns
• Air Compressor
• Drill and Driver with Bits
• Kreg Jig
• Optional – Planer in conjunction with sanding (really a nice convenience if you have the tool)

Lumber and Materials

List with cost is shown below.

Cut List

Below is a list of wood showing the sizes and the cuts. 

Instructions:

We measured and cut all the posts and rails for the headboards and footboards. After we cut everything to the right dimension, we ran them all through the planer to get them nice and smooth. This saved us tons of time sanding. We wanted all the pieces to be splinter free, so we made sure to get them smooth before we assembled it.

We attached them together with 2 1/2-inch Kreg Jig screws coming in from the top side and bottom side of the rails. We couldn't get these screws at the typical hardware store (Home Depot or Lowe's), so we actually had to order some from Amazon.com (we ordered this box). It makes me mad these stores don't even carry the 2 1/2-inch screws! I made it so the pocket holes would be concealed by the center panel crown. Unfortunately, the bottom pocket holes couldn't be concealed, so I just filled them with wood filler (several times because the wood filler would shrink after it dried) and sanded them flush. Luckily, these are not very visible because they are on the bottom side.

Kristen drilled some of the holes with the Kreg Jig R3 (or Kreg Jig Mini). You can see we used the Kreg Jig extension piece made for the 2 1/2-inch screws so they penetrate deeper and more in the center. We also adjusted the collar on the drill bit so it fit the 2 1/2-inch setting.

We adjusted the collar on the drill bit and then removed the extension piece so we could cut the center panels. We used 3/4-inch maple/birch plywood. We actually had to scoot the pocket holes closer than recommended to the edge of the plywood so the 2 1/4-inch crown molding would conceal the holes. In fact, on a few of the holes, the crown didn't completely cover the holes so we had to fill the beginning of the holes with wood filler. We also shimmed up the starting point of the Craig Jig to make the hole start point a little closer to the edge. 

We centered the plywood in the middle of the 4x4 headboard/footboard frame and screwed them in. This was very difficult to get exactly in the center. If we were too far to one edge, the 2 1/4-inch crown would either sit too low or sit too high (poked above the sides of the 4x4). My recommendation is to get this exactly in the center somehow. You could mark the place it needs to be around the interior of the frame and then somehow hold it in place and screw it. We spent a long time tinkering with the panel crown in order to get it to sit flush. We even had to sand the edge of the crown down in some places to get it to sit flush with the edge of the 4x4 frame. 

Here is a picture of them starting to come together. 

After we got the plywood panel in place, we measured and cut the 2 1/4-inch crown for the center. We laid it as if the plywood panel was the wall and the 4x4 frame was the ceiling. We cut the crown at a 45 degree miter holding it as if the Miter Table was the wall and the fence was the ceiling.

We actually measured and cut the 3 1/2-inch cove crown molding on one of the foot boards so we could try to choose between a bull nose profile on the cap or a square profile on the cap. We took pictures so we could try to figure out which looked better, and we even asked for input from our facebook followers! We also added a little 4x4 support piece in the center of the top rail to support the top cap. I didn't show it on the Sketch 3d drawings, but it was 1 1/4 inches tall. 

Here is the bull nose profile we chose.

We also liked the square profile. Which do you like more? We ended up going with the rounded edge because we felt like the soft edge matched the rounded bun feet we had ordered.

Here is Kristen routering the 3/4-inch MDF top cap. We used a 3/8-inch round over bit and flipped the wood to get both sides. 

We attached the 4 1/2-inch by 4 1/2-inch transition piece from the side post to the bun feet. We bull nosed this piece to match the top cap. 

We sanded throughout the entire process. 

We caulked the seams where they weren't perfectly aligned.

Here I am marking the center of the 4 1/2-inch piece in preparation for the 4-inch by 3/8-inch screw dowel. These we bought with the feet from Osborne Wood Products online. We drilled the hole with a cordless drill and a 3/8-inch drill bit. We marked 2 inches on the drill bit by wrapping it with blue painters tape at 2 inches. 

Here I am screwing in the 4-inch screw dowel with plyers. I found out later that it was much easier to screw it in a little in the bun feet and then just screw the bun feet in by twisting it with my hands. It eventually twists all the way (2 inches) into one side and then will twist the remained in the other side.

I marked the place where the bottom bun feet will sit on the headboard top cap and then drilled 2 inches down. I also drilled 2 inches up on the bun feet on the footboards. We connected them together with the 4-inch screw dowels. We didn't screw them together because that would be impossible. We used a drill bit larger than 3/8-inch so the dowel could slide up and down with little friction. Just the weight of the footboard and the holes not being 100 percent completely aligned keep them together tight. 

We decided to put the finished bottom and top piece together for the first time and we were so excited how it looked!  It was really fun to see the project coming to life.

We put on the side rails with 2 1/2-inch Kreg Jig screws. We cut a 4x4 post at the right height (6 inches) to make it easier to hold it in place and drill it.

We put it all together in the basement to make sure it fits. The kids loved seeing the new bunk beds.

Then we moved on to the ladder. We used the actual measurement for the length of the ladder. We just used 2x4s for the side rails and ripped 2x4s in half for the ladder rungs. We rounded all the sides of the ladder with the round over bit on the router so it would be easy to grasp. We also radiused the top and bottom of the ladder because we liked the rounded look.

We attached the rungs by putting 3-inch screws (or longer) into each side and then put some finish nails to keep it stable (keep it from twisting). 

We then measured and cut the side rails. We decided to also put a guard rail on the bottom bunk to prevent our daughter from sliding down between the bed and the wall and getting stuck. Kristen actually spent quite a bit of time researching the national safety requirements for bunk beds so we knew it would be safe for our little girls.  We attached the rail pieces together with 2 1/2-inch Kreg Jig screws. We decided to router all the edges of the guardrails to make them easier to grab. 

Once we got everything painted, we assembled it upstairs in the kids room and then cut and attached the cleats to hold the box spring and mattress. We ripped a 2x4 in half and attached it to the rails and headboard with 3 inch screws. Because the top bunk didn't have a box spring, we bought twin bed slates from Ikea for about $20. You could easily just use a piece of plywood or make your own slates. We just went with the easiest route after we were burnt out.

Voila, it's all done! We actually put the two beds together and lifted the top bunk on top of the bottom bunk. It was extremely heavy and three grown men could barely get it in place without having a hernia. The ladder being screwed in to both the top and bottom bed adds stability and it is so heavy that there is no way the kids could cause any sort of damage to it. This is about as high of quality bed as you can get. If an earthquake hit us, I think we will all be hiding under the bunk beds - they could hold up the roof of the house!

Since we already had a dresser for our girls, we wanted the bunk beds to match it.  In fact, a lot of the design for the bunk beds was inspired by the dresser.  However, when we bought the dresser, it already had some square bun feet.  Kristen really wanted to dresser to match the bunk beds perfectly, so we ordered an extra four bun feet (these extra four are not included in any of the material lists or pricing, since they weren't part of the bunk beds) and swapped them out on the dresser.  It turned out so beautiful!  The dresser and the bunk beds really felt like a matching pair.  It turned out just how Kristen hoped it would.

In total, we spent about three weeks completing this project.  A lot of time was wasted because we kept running out of materials (mostly trim!), but we finally got them finished.  Doing a beautiful paint finish took an additional week. We painted it before it was assembled and Kristen did three good coats of paint, with light sanding in between each coat. It was a big project, probably our biggest yet, but it was well worth it. These bunk beds are stunning and we still get excited each time we see them.