The best things in life are free.

I may have mentioned one or a dozen times how much money you can save by shopping/selling on some of the buy and sell Facebook pages.  Clothes, electronics, books, furniture…you name it and somebody is either selling it or wants to buy it from you.  One day last week I saw that a girlfriend of mine had put up a FB notice saying that she had solid wood bunk beds free for the taking.  Mad has wanted bunk beds forever, but I refused to pay an arm and a leg for pressed particle board crap available in most big box stores.  Mark & I have been keeping an eye out, figuring that something will come along at some point, and boy, did it!

I sent poor Mark out in the cold and the dark to grab it and bring it home.  It looked something like this.

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Pretty basic.  Someone had made them and while they were HEAVY and well made, there would need to be some tweeking done to make them 1, safe and 2, tween girl worthy.  These were great, AND FREE, but my child likes all things pink and sparkly.  These looked very dorm room, very male.  We had our work cut out for us.

Mark went out and got some super heavy-duty 4×6’s and we were off!  We..hahahaha.  That means Mark.  He worked like a demon all day and into the evening on them.  Did I mention we live in a split-level house?  And to get these up to Mad’s room they had to go out the garage door, up the front steps, of which there are 9, into the house and up another level.  Gulp.  It’s OK, Mark did great!

Once we (hahahaha) got them upstairs, the building commenced.  The 4×6’s were un-stained and I wasn’t sure how I felt about painting the whole thing.  Much like her mother, Mad can change her mind on a dime and we both get bored of one color easily.  So here’s what we did…

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Duck brand adhesive liner from Walmart!  Zebra striped!  $5 for a HUGE roll (we didn’t even use one whole one on the entire project plus extras).  I did the support 4×6’s, the drawer fronts (Mark spray painted the drawer pulls white for me), the new support board to secure the ladder and Mad’s bedside table.  SO CUTE.   I also spent $5.00 at Walmart for 4 yards of the hot pink netting for the bows and the princess decal was 97 cents.

Final results?

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Is that not the cutest thing?  She’s beyond thrilled and I’m pretty pleased with it myself.  Mark does awesome work and my GOD is this thing solid.  As you know I’m a bit of a worrier and Mark built this thing to withstand WWIII.  The only way we’re getting it apart is with a chain saw.  And see the super cheap fix for a sharp edge up there on the bottom bunk?  $1 blue pool noodle from Dollar Tree, split right down the length of it and fits perfectly onto the edge…keeps skinny little legs from getting scraped crawling in or out.  I attached a cute Clinique bag I found for .99 at Goodwill to the upper rail for her to stow her remotes and books in.  Not bad for free!  A little money for lumber and tweeks, a lot of elbow grease and some creativity.  I hope she continues to love them, because she’s going to be in them until she’s 30.

Allyson Sorenson

About Allyson Sorenson

Bangor mom. BDN blogger. Volvo lover. Coffee drinker.