Hey guys!

Happy Monday!

I am here today to show you my latest furniture build with you.  My baby is growing up, and she is ready for a ‘big girl’ bed.  Notice I said she is ready and not me.  I wanted something that would grow with her.  I ran across Pottery Barn Kid’s Emmet line and knew this is the direction I wanted to go.  I hit my sweet friend Ana White up for plans, and she delivered!   I got to work last week and here is how it turned out…

DIY Bed Twin

One of my favorite parts about this bed…

DIY Trundle Bed

I love trundles!  We will be building one to go with this bed, and we will be sharing that with you guys too!

Ignore the empty room… I will be building her all the matching pieces, so it looks a bit blank at the moment. 🙂 I will share some tips and photos here, and you can get the full set of plans over on Ana White’s site.

My awesome in-laws took my four oldest kids camping for a few days last week.  I knew that would be a perfect time to get this done.  This bed is a very easy build.  I bought the wood around 1 pm, and had the whole thing stained and finished by 7:00 that night… And that included stopping for dinner and taking care of the baby!

Let’s get started!

This plan calls for plywood.  I chose our obvious favorite for my plywood…

PureBond Plywood of course.  Many of you guys know how much Ash and I love this stuff.


The thought of building beautiful furniture with plywood may sound a bit strange.  It did to us as well!  That was until we learned about PureBond Plywood.

PureBond Plywood can be found at any Home Depot.

What sold us on PureBond

~ It uses Formaldehyde-free glue (scary to think we have been breathing in harmful chemicals until now)

~ It’s made in AMERICA… Whoop!!!

~ It’s made with wood from sustainable forests

~ It’s extremely easy to work with

~ Biggest selling point for us… It’s BEAUTIFUL!  You get the look of real hard wood for a fraction of the cost.  Home Depot stocks birch and oak.  You can also order hickory, maple, you name it and have it delivered to your store… Love that!

So after learning the benefits of PureBond Plywood, we will never go back.  It’s such an obvious choice and it fits quite nicely in our shanty budgets!

I had the nice guy at Home Depot cut it down for me.  I love having them cut the big pieces.  It saves me time, and makes it easy to throw in the car!  One 4×8 sheet will be enough for 2 twin beds.  For the rest of the bed, I used pine boards and 2×4’s.

Home Depot

I wouldn’t build this bed (or anything ;-)) without my Kreg Jig!  You guys know how much we love our Kreg Jigs.  They make building so much easier, and your pieces will be much more professional and sturdy.  This is the model that Ashley and I use.

Kreg Jig

For the 2×4 sides and frame I used 1 1/2″ pocket holes and 2 1/2″ pocket hole screws.  This is where I put them for the frame…

Kreg Pocket Holes

For the 1/2″ plywood panels I used 1/2″ pocket holes, and 1 1/4″ pocket hole screws.

Kreg Jig Pocket Holes

Small tip here…  I decided to attach 3 sides of the headboard and footboard first.  Next, I attached the plywood panels using pocket hole screws on those 3 sides.  I then added the bottom 2×4 piece and attached it to the frame and the plywood.  This varies slightly from the order of the plans, but I felt like it was easier than trying to fit the panel into the space after I had the whole frame built.

For my 1×4 pieces on the fronts, I used my Ryobi brad nailer from the back and attached those with 1″ brads and Gorilla Wood Glue.

 Have you guys seen the new Ryobi One+ Airstrike Brad Nailer coming out??  I AM GIDDY.  It uses the same batteries as our drills and keeps you from having to lug around an air hose.  Woohoo!

Ryobi Airstrike Brad Nailer

To make it easy to get this baby into her room, I cut the runners for the bed and stained those separately from the headboard and footboard.  I wanted a dark, rich color for her room (hides coloring marks really well ;-)) and decided to go with Rust-Oleum Ultimate Wood Stain in Kona.  I love the contrast with her bedding and walls.

Rust-Oleum Kona

Once that dried I took everything upstairs and attached the bed.

For those of you that love your Kreg, you will also LOVE their Right Angle Clamp !!
For projects like this one, it made attaching the bed a breeze.  I was working alone, well… Minus the help of this guy.

Kreg Right Angle Clamp

The Right Angle Clamp holds the boards tightly into place through a pocket hole… Genius.

I attached my 2×4 runners first.

How to build a bed

Kreg Pocket Hole Screws

Then, I attached the 1×8 runners.   I made sure to put the holes in the 1×8 boards at the top so that the 2×4 wouldn’t cover them.  After I had both attached I also came back through the 2×4’s with 2″ wood screws into the 1×8 boards.  I did this just because I know who will be jumping sleeping on this bed. 😉

Pocket Hole Screws Kreg

And finally… Cost!  If you stick with white wood boards, the cost for lumber will be under $70.  That’s a happy number.

That’s it!  I know it was a mouthful, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible!  My final step was setting it up and getting pictures for you guys!  For those of you that are wondering, I bought her bedding at PBTeen.com.  While I do like to knock off their furniture, I always go there for my kids bedding.  It washes so well, and look how darn cute it is!  I always find it on clearance which makes it even cuter!

I can’t wait to share every piece of her room.  I am teaming up with Ana White to bring you the entire room of furniture… It will be beautiful!  Here is the bed all finished up…

DIY Bed Twin Size

DIY Pottery Barn Bed

DIY Bed Twin

Pottery Barn Kids DIY Bed

diy bed

So, what do you think?  Does she look like a satisfied customer??

photo-3

Hope you love it!  Remember to check out the full set of plans on Ana White’s site!  I would love for you to pin this and share it below!  Thanks so much for stopping by! 🙂

~Whitney

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36 Comments

  1. Unfinished room but here’s a photo of our build! We’re starting a second one today for my son!

  2. I love this bed!! Would you happen to have any measurements for a double/full? If not…do you have something similar in that size? My son has a bunk bed and he wants a “Big Boy” bed. This would be a perfect project!!!!

  3. My husband and I just started building 2 of these beds last night. Thank you for the plans! I was wondering, did you ever make a trundle bed for this bed?

  4. Love that you do tutorials! Thank you for that. I did build this bed (slight modifications). One thing everyone should know is that the height of the plans are for a toddler. After making the mistake of just cutting it exactly how said, I realized the height was not suitable for my pre-teen. Another mistake I made was when I attached the side rails, I put them flush with the outter headboard and footboard so I have a really large gap around her bed. It’s not noticable when the bed is made so I left the gap. Just wanted people to be sure to watch for those things when building. Thank you again for the tutorials. Today I am building the matching nightstand. =)

    1. You mean the bed’s height, right? Or did you mean how long the bed is for someone to lay down on & have enough room? I want to make them for my 10 y/o & 7 y/o sons, so just want to be sure I can adjust for them. Thanks!

        1. Ok, thank you! When you mentioned toddler for some reason I was wondering if it meant toddler sized bed & mattress. What height did you use on yours?

          1. Since I didn’t discover the height problem til after my headboard pieces were cut, I left the headboard sized how she said and just moved the side tails higher up on it and made the footboard 27″ tall. I added some extra details since my daughters room is western styled. 😉 If you are planning on making the dresser that matches do not follow any of the cut instructions. The instructions aren’t even close to how it should be. A lot of missing info too. I had to wing the whole thing. Just used the picture.

  5. Great job. I saw the side tables in another post do you have the plans for them as well? Thanks for sharing.

  6. I love this bed and love Ana White’s site! Did you end up making a trundle for it?? If so can you link the plans for that too? Thanks!!

  7. I love her bedding too! All the colors are a fun mix and yet pretty at the same time.

  8. Love it and I love this blog!Funny thing is that I have worked at HD for 8 years and was never really inspired to build anything until I discovered Pinterest & then your blog. I just bought myself some new tools and I have my eye on that Ryobi brad nailer! Thanks so much for the post. My 16 year old son is getting too tall for his twin bed so we are buying him a double. Any idea how easy this would be to covert to a full size?

  9. Talk about sleeping like a baby….looks like she loves it!! Can’t wait to see the whole room too! P.s. do your in-laws. want a few more grandkids?