Materials: SNIGLAR bed, STOLMEN pole & climbing ladder
I always dreamed of having a castle bed as a kid and now since I have a little 4 year old that loves castles I decided to just make it!
What we used from Ikea was; a SNIGLAR bed, STOLMEN pole & a climbing ladder. We also used 4 timber poles, 16mm MDF panels and a saw, A LOT OF screws and a drill to support the structure… and other things like paint, sand paper etc. We added little features like the RIBBA shelf for books and LED lighting.
It all started with a (really bad) drawing of our dream castle bed (made in collaboration with our 4 year old daughter) and it ended up being made mostly with things that we had around the house. The bed and the pole was something we already had. I had just bought the blue climbing ladder the week before at a second hand shop not even knowing what for.
I am fortunate to have a very handy husband and a father that helped with the construction of it. The whole thing was done in one day. We started by raising the bed with four wooden poles (height 120 cm) that were bolted to the bed and then bolted to the wall for additional support. We then measured everything again to be able to saw out the panels correctly. We had the panels sawed in a milling machine, but they could easily be hand sawed, but that would take longer.. and some precise sawing skills 🙂 We then went over all the panels with sand paper to smooth everything out (that was done by hand).. because it has to be safe for little hands.
It was easy from there. Panels fit perfectly and we screwed them to the bed frame and to the wooden poles. We also added fixtures that fasten the panels to the walls for extra support. Then we painted with some white paint we had at the house and put up the climbing ladder. The sliding pole idea just came to me after we raised the bed. We had one pole leftover from a Stolmen shelving unit we installed in another room and I thought it could be a great sliding pole, and secure since it can be screwed to the ceiling 🙂
Now we are just adding little things, like a RIBBA bookshelf, LED lighting and we also added a rope from the ceiling.. and then later we might add some climbing stones on the side. My daughter loves her castle.. she of course sings “Let it Go” relentlessly and calls this the castle of Arendell! then at night time we can easily use a chair to climb in there with her and read bedtime stories..
I thought this would make the room appear smaller, but it actually turned out to be the opposite. The room seems more spacious then before.
And here is the other side of the room. I attached a Ikea STUVA clothing pole to a TROFAST storage unit next to her MALM where she has the rest of her clothes. She needed a special place for all of her dresses, including her Frozen princess dress for playtime in the castle.
See the Playhouse Castle bed on Pinterest.