New Bed for the Girls

This is the girls before we decided to get them a new bed.  L had possibly become scared of sleeping in her bed alone and so we tried switching the girls.  On the first night Kj said, "My bed is softer!"  But they did well for a few nights in "opposite" beds.  Well, one night Kj woke up crying that she wanted to sleep in her bed.  She was inconsolable and so we made room on the twin bed and put her at the foot of the bed...or the second head.  In the below picture, they had started out the night with heads at either end, and realizing they didn't mind sharing a bed, we decided to try for something bigger.

Here are the girls taking apart their old bed with me.  They were very helpful.  :)  They played in, on, around, under all the parts.  I believe the drawer section was a boat or a bus. 

 

Kevin and I went to IKEA to buy some dressers.  We got the idea from a website called IKEA Hackers.  Very fun site to go through!

  

Here are Kevin and his dad starting the bed frame.  We spent a Saturday afternoon doing the frame and positioning the dressers to make the bed.  The girls were with their Nana.

We got the bed into the bedroom and I wanted to see how spacious the "fort" would be.  

Here the girls are helping with the finishing touches.  We realized we needed to put a spacer in each side of the bed so the rungs wouldn't shift and fall through!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, playing on the bed.  Yeah, we decided rails were necessary...but didn't make plans for them, so the first night (and ever since) we put an old set of crib rails up.  They are removable when changing sheets is the order of the day or big hugs, or quickly getting sick children down from the bed...nice, but hope to think of something soon to do the same thing, but that matches.

 

Steps to the top: stool, dresser, bed.