A Full-Size Bed Made From Standard Pine 2-by Lumber

My youngest son (who is 28) needed something to replace a platform bed made of particle board he’d been using for several years since he moved out on his own and decided he needed something other than his old twin-size bunkbed. Since I’ve been considering building a new bed of my own, I thought I could build a bed for him and, in the process, practice and perfect some techniques.

The bed needed to be inexpensive, so I used standard 2-by pine lumber from Home Depot, which I first trimmed and squared up from larger stock. If I had to do it again, I would have upgraded to Douglas Fir (also from Home Depot) that I’ve used on some subsequent projects. I decided to use basic panels that would fit into grooves built in frames that were joined using pocket hole joinery. For the panels, I had some leftover 3/16th thick pine tongue and groove paneling which I would glue to a 1/4-inch MDF board as a backing. This worked well since only one side of the paneling would ever be visible of the headboard and footboard.

My son also wanted some good space for storage underneath. Since he had no box springs and used only a good memory foam mattress, I was easily able to raise the bed rails high enough to provide clearance for him to store 13-inch high footlockers and baskets underneath without the bed being too high.

(I’ll be adding more pictures and a bit about my process and what I learned later, but wanted to at least get this started.)

-- Tim, Glen Burnie, Maryland