Remodeling Two Teenager Bedrooms: The Dorm Loft Bed Edition

The balancing act is worth being able to paint all sides at once!

I discovered how cutely people were styling their loft beds while researching all the crap we needed to buy for our first-time college student. I am also going full-on dorm-style in her tiny bedroom at home, because it turns out that these dorm room kids have the best ideas for making the most of tiny spaces. 

And her sister, who we're simultaneously moving into her own HUGE bedroom, also wanted the same kind of dorm loft bed, because she has all the hobbies and all the crap to go with those hobbies, so wants as much floor space as possible.

By dorm loft bed, I LITERALLY mean a literal dorm loft bed. I looked everywhere online and all the commercially-available loft beds either looked flimsy or were ridiculously expensive. But then Matt went to our local university's surplus store, spent two hundred dollars on four loftable beds that used to be in a dorm, paid another twenty bucks to a local machine shop to cut the steel pins you need to loft them, then a little more on a couple of 2"x4"s to make the braces for the lower half of the beds, and just like that we've got two loft beds and two metal mattress frames that I'm seriously considering using as garden trellises. 

The teenager who is VERY picky about her room insisted that she wanted her bed painted black. I was extremely hesitant about this, but once Matt and I had finished the project, I had to admit that it looked good. Like, REALLY good.

So then I dragged the college kid's loft bed pieces out into the garage and painted those, too! And they also look good! Will I never cease learning about the wonders of a fresh coat of paint?!?

The next day, the teenager and I spent the afternoon listening to an audiobook of The Iliad (those gods cannot let the mortals alone to live their own lives for a single freaking second!) and touching up all the paint in her bedroom:

--and then while she was at ballet that night, Matt and I got her bed installed.

It holds a human!

It was also terrifyingly tall, though, so the teenager had to wait for me to order and receive a guardrail before she could actually sleep in it.

The college student's bed got assembled next, and now we're ready to style them!

Here's my dorm loft bed inspiration:

The benefit of buying dorm surplus is that these pics are all of the exact same basic bed that we now own. I love seeing what other teenagers have done with these beds!

Both of my own teenagers want their desks under their loft bed. I personally think it's too dim there even with supplemental lighting, but I guess if you've got the sharp eyesight of youth, you might as well take advantage of it! My older teenager has consented to shop our home and let me move the well-loved IKEA table that used to be in their playroom into her room, but the picky younger teenager remains picky, and even with the promise of a miraculous fresh coat of paint, none of the tables we already own suited her.

So we're still working on that, I guess.

Here are some other things that I think would be SUPER cute to style under their loft beds:

I haven't been to a garage sale since COVID, but I guess now I've got an excuse to get up early on Saturday, withdraw some cash from the ATM, and take a little tour around town... or at least I will when the weather finally stops being ridiculous. I'm ready to move Proper Spring, but the weather here keeps insisting on continuing to swing wildly between Second Winter and Swamp Spring. If this keeps up, I won't be able to get any decent yardwork done before Here There Be Tornadoes Month!