All too often the floor space in our homes seems to shrink as our children grow. As your child grows into a teen, they begin to take a little more interest in how their room is designed. Adding a loft bed to your teen's room not only frees up some floor space in the room, but it also adds some interesting nooks and crannies to the room as well. While you can always buy a loft bed to put in your teen's room, you can also build your own for a truly custom look in their room.
Choose a Design
Before you do anything else, take a good look at your teen's bedroom. Since loft beds are raised, you will need to ensure that the ceilings in the room are at least eight feet tall, and if they are higher, so much the better. As you are drawing up your plans, make sure to leave enough clearance between the bed and the ceiling for your child to sit up in bed comfortably. Make sure that you take the mattress height into consideration when you are calculating overhead space for the bed.
If your child is in college and you are making modifications to a dorm room, make sure to check with the college to make sure that you meet their building and safety standards.
Have a Plan
If you have never built a loft bed before, it is probably a good idea to get some professional plans from which to work. You can find them in a number of places including design magazines, on the Internet or even in the library. You can also buy loft building kits, which may be a great selection if you do not have much carpentry experience.
Always Be Safe
One of the reasons that you may want to start with a kit if you are an inexperienced builder is because you want to make sure that your design and construction are safe. First of all you need to make sure that the bed supports are sturdy enough to support the weight of the bed and your child. You will want to use screws and bolts instead of nails in your construction, which will not only make the bed more sturdy, but it will also be easier to disassemble when you move or no longer need it. Make sure that the mattress support is built from sturdy plywood, and it should fit the mattress size that you are placing in the bed. The bed will also have a ladder for ingress and egress. Make sure that it is constructed with durability in mind, and that it is held firmly in place. Again, you want to attach it with screws or bolts to make sure that it does not shift when in use.
Choosing Materials
Wood is probably the most popular building material for a loft bed, and it is also the easiest material with which to work. However, if you are skilled at working with metal, you can certainly find plans for a metal, loft bed. Depending on your construction skills and the design of the room in which you are placing the loft bed, there are a variety of different materials that you can use to build a loft bed for your teen.
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