Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Ikea Kura Hack: Pinterest Party






Today I am joining Bobbi at Revolution of Love (altogether heartening and holy and wonderful blog that reeeealy makes you wish you lived on the Monterrey Peninsula and not Central Flo) for her first Pinterest Party link up, where any and all can join in to showcase their Pinterest pins they have actually succeeded in creating. Can't wait to be inspired by everything others have done!  [And I cannot figure out how to "grap a button" on this blog thing, so I just copy and paste the image, so tips on what I need to do would be appreciated before I have to resort to Google.]

Okay, let's get this rolling!

Here is the pin, or actually the source of the pin I started with:



It is from Ikeahackers.net which is just the neatest website where that showcases all sorts of projects people have made from Ikea projects, really amazing stuff like today I saw featured a gorgeous wine bar made entirely from ugly Ikea book shelves. I could get lost on that site and emerge several days later with a million homemaking ideas none of which I will ever employ because I have spent the last fortnight on the computer and have dishes and laundry and dirty faced kids to deal with. But I digress...

This project starts with the Ikea Kura bed that looks like this:

We wanted to replace AnneMarie and Naomi's twin beds with something that would take up less space, but wasn't quite as dangerous as a traditional bunk bed. I loved this idea, and while I am not at all handy, I married the right guy.  



We found a barely used Kura bed on craigslist for a hundred bucks, bought some wallpaper and mod podge, pre-finished-cut-to-size  melamine boards, and some pieces of wood Obi had to route lines into to hold the boards for the bottom bunk. (I know this makes no sense, but Obi's not around to correct any of my verbal wrongdoing, so on we go.)





We had originally planned on painting the wood frame white, but when we actually got the bed, the wood looked warm and interesting, and their room is mostly white, and we thought it would look a little less little girly if this bed carries over into at least their pre-teen years, which we are shooting for.





It took us (I did nothing but apply wallpaper to the panels) about a day of work and about $150 total. Not bad.




 And it is so much fun!  Not very high, Isaac can easily scale his way up and down, and the bottom bunk is basically on the floor and is almost like a secret hideout.





So though I mostly curse you for the unrealistic expectations you place on all of us (flat abs in 7 minutes a day be cursed!) I do thank you, Pinterest, for seriously coming through every once in awhile. 

Big Time.

14 comments:

  1. Ooohhhh!!! Fun, fun, fun! I'm in. My husband curses Pinterest.

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  2. Ohmygoodness, looking through these awesome photos has me running around my house looking at all the areas that desperately need some creative remodeling. How I love this! I'm a big fan of Ikea (90% of our furniture is from there) and I bookmarked the website you mentioned so I can check it out. I love the details that you added to pretty up the bed and I swoon over those wall butterflies! I also like that the bed is on the floor. I need one like that for the boys! Thanks for linking up and and for all the kind words. You are so sweet. Mwah!

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  3. I love it! Pinning your pin post for when V. is out of the crib and we need to assess the bed sitch in the girls' room!

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  4. That bed looks super cool! Awesome job!

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  5. Too cute! My girls have that bed and I think we to do a little remodeling.

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  6. I love it! Where do you get your bedding? I love the girls' bedding, and really love you and Obi's bedding too. Their room is lovely, just lovely and the bed - well, we could never pull it off but I'll just covet yours for fun instead! (-;

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  7. My boys have that bed! And I love how the added ... Uh .... Floor board(?) adds so much to the bed itself. Maybe poor, unloved child #3 would feel like his bed area was special if we did something lie this also.
    You know, and not just a mattress on the floor.... Under his brothers... O.o

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    1. Wait! Question!

      Did you get the extra slats for under the bottom mattress? My husband pointed out the whole 'Don't Poison Your Child!' Warning... And uh... We've been poisoning our child it seems .... Whoops! Guess another hour drive out to Ikea for bed slats and then back again is in order.... :/

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    2. Hi Shannon,

      We already owned bunky boards from their previous beds, so that went on the bottom, and because of the frame we built around the bottom, the bunky board itself sits slightly elevated, although the bunky board would have provided the so-called need for air circulation under the mattress.

      Frankly, I think that a need for something under the mattress is ridiculous. When we built this, I googled "health hazard mattress on floor" and there was not a single result I could find that indicated this was a risk. It is a presumed precaution that people have invented, but there is no evidence, and as far as I could find, no official medical warning. Most of our babies slept on a mattress on the floor for the first two years of their lives, next to our bed. I would do the same thing with my next baby as well.

      Having said that, I probably would "air" the mattress every few days simply by lifting it up. This couldn't hurt, and might ease the conscience, even if it didn't do any actual good.

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  8. Beautiful! And, we wonder. Who sleeps where?

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    1. Usually AnneMarie on top, Naomi on the bottom, and Isaac somewhere too, but they all generally switch it up all the time and end up in the same bed.

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  9. Very Interesting

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  10. I love your Kura Hack! Thanks for sharing! I was Pinterest inspired to do one as well not long ago:
    http://mommyneurotic.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/diy-chevron-ikea-kura-bed-hack/

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