P is for Platform Bed

This weekend Nick and I made a bed! With our narrow staircase, there was no way we could get a full sized box spring into the tower bedroom of our apartment. (Believe me, Nick and my dad tried, getting stuck about halfway up). Plan B was a platform bed that we could build/assemble in the room. I stumbled upon this bed and fell in love. Luckily, so did Nick! So much in fact, that he went out and bought two pallets while I was at work on Friday.

They were the perfect size for the full mattress that we already owned. With the mattress on, we had a little overhang on the sides and the bottom, which was fine with us. Next we attached four 2.5 inch caster wheels to the corners of each pallet. (We decide not to join the two pallets together for ease in moving and being able to get the whole thing down the stairs in the future.) We used locking wheels for the front and back of the bed and non-locking (aka cheaper) wheels for the middle. So each pallet had two locking and two non-locking wheels.

Once the wheels were in place, we flipped the pallets over, lined them up with one another, and locked the wheels in place. The four locking wheels  plus the weight of the mattress were enough to keep the entire bed in place. We were talking about various things to use as a headboard and Nick suggested our turquoise pantry door, that we had used in our old apartment. So, we lugged it upstairs and gave it a a try. 

Eh, not quite the look we're going for. With unique headboards on my mind,  I stopped at Urban Ore on Saturday morning and perused their section of clearance windows and doors, and found this perfectly shabby chic window: 

I took a gamble, since I didn't know the width of the window or the bed, and decided to buy it.  And wouldn't you know? It worked like a charm!

And that's all it took to make our very own pallet platform bed! We realize the bed isn't everyone's style but we love the Anthropologie-ish, utilitarian look it has, and that it cost next to nothing to make. 

Here's the cost break-down:
2 pallets: $13
4 rolling wheels + 4 locking wheels: $3.48 (after some Home Depot gift cards)
1 window: $10
_____________________
Total: $26.48

You may have noticed the mess that was taking over this room during this project. This room is where ALL our pictures were being stored along with pretty much anything else that wasn't completely unpacked or didn't have a home. So, after completing the bed project we set to work on finishing the rest of the room. This is the scary mess we started with:

This is how we ended:

Not too shabby for a few hours of work!