Fire Truck Toddler Bed

by Julie at Build, Sew, Reap

$40

When my kid needs a new bed, I don't hold back:

fire truck toddler bed, bedroom ideas, diy, painted furniture, repurposing upcycling, woodworking projects

But first, let me back up a little bit. The little dude outgrew his mini crib even though I took one side off to make it more of a toddler bed. I realized this problem when he was already sleeping with his toes through the slats and one arm hanging off the side of the bed. I jumped into action and being me, I couldn't just build him a normal bed, it had to be COOL!

Thanks to my many garden projects revolving around old cribs, I had a spare regular sized crib springs on hand. I also found a free crib mattress listed on my community Buy Nothing site. The next step was to dig into my wood shed and start pulling stuff out. Here's where the pile started but I'll admit that I pulled out lots more scraps of plywood and MDF before the project was over.

I started by building a base using pieces of door jamb that came with the pantry doors. The ridge inside the door jamb sits on top of the 4x4 legs and the crib springs sit on top of the inner ridge so it is well supported on all sides.

I also spray painted it with chrome spray paint.

Then I got to building the top part of it. Each piece size and shape depended quite a bit on the wood I had. I just stared at the pile, figured out what would work and jumped in with both feet.

This:

became this:

Then I started adding details and painting.

And I added hinges to the front so we could open it up for easier sheet changes.

Then the details got really really intricate. I used my Silhouette to create the stencils with these intricate patterns. The fire "F" is for Felix (or Fire if we ever sell it).

And finally, I moved it into his room and he was totally thrilled!!

I also rearranged his room to better suit his new big-boy motif. I moved furniture, cleaned out toys and even sold off the biggest piece of furniture that was in his room. Here is the final look:

He gets so excited to climb into bed each night. That alone made this project worth every second of work.

One final note - the canopy cover you see here was from our Radio Flyer wagon. We never used it on the wagon and I've been kicking it around the garage for years. I spray painted the top red to hide the "Radio Flyer" logo and I'm thrilled with the end result.