Build your own twin bed with this beginner-friendly house bed building plan! The printable woodworking plan includes the option for a box spring support rail or bed slats instead of a box spring.
Hi it’s Amy from Hertoolbelt back again with another build project. If you’ve been following along with our build series, you’ve probably noticed a few ‘house’ shaped projects. We have made the cute Playhouse frame for a fun reading nook. A little more recently, the house headboard. The house project that takes the cake is the amazing Bunk Bed Playhouse. When Australian magazine Home Life showed this fun House Frame bed in a kids’ room article, we had to add it to the collection of ‘house’ shaped tutorials, right!
How to Build a House Frame Twin Bed
Click here to purchase and download the House Frame Twin Bed printable woodworking plan.
This house bed is designed to fit a twin mattress and box spring 39″ x 75″, with a no box spring option that uses 1×4 bed slats instead. Here are the overall dimensions of the bed.
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House Frame Twin Bed Building Plan Materials Needed
- printable woodworking plan
- 9 – 2″ x 4″ x 8′ boards (actual 1 1/2″ x 3 1/2″)
- 3 – 2″ x 2″ x 8′ boards (actual 1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″)
- *5 – 1″ x 4″ x 8′ boards (actual 3/4″ x 3 1/2″)
- *1 1/2″ screws
- 2 1/2″ pocket screws (self tapping)
- 2″ brad nails
- Pendant Light
- wood glue
- wood filler
- sand paper
- Paint and primer or wood stain
- Kreg Jig pocket hole jig
* No box spring option
Yes — you can build a twin bed from just 2x4s and 2x2s! The option 1×4 bed slats are
How to assemble a house-shaped twin bed frame
After making the cuts following the cut list and diagram in the printable woodworking plan, you’ll use pocket holes and screws to assemble the bed as detailed in the plans. To join the boards, use pocket holes set for 1 1/2″ material.
Can I disassemble the house bed to move it?
Yes! If you apply wood glue to *only* the joints for the headboard and footboard sections, you’ll be able to remove the screws connecting the bed rails and roof beam to the headboard and footboard and move the bed in sections.
If you anticipate disassembling and moving this bed multiple times, you might consider adjusting the plans to use metal surface-mounted bed rail brackets instead. Connecting the bed slats using webbing to make your attached bed slats will also take up less space than using a box spring, while making disassembly easier than installing the bed slats with screws, as suggested in the building plan.
Finishing the DIY House Bed Frame
Once you finished building the twin house bed frame, remove any excess glue, apply wood filler to nail holes, cracks and blemishes and allow to dry. Sand the wood filler and house frame until smooth, finishing with 120-150 grit sand paper. Stain or paint and prime as you like.
It looks like the bed in the inspiration picture was whitewashed. For tutorials on whitewashing see Whitewash Planked Ceiling and White Wash vs Dry Brush.
For a colorful pop, use our colorwashing stain technique to stain the bed ANY color you like!
If you want a more traditional or rustic stained finish, you can mix up your own homemade stains using our recipes, or use pre-stain wood conditioner with an off-the-shelf stain.
The little details are what make any project. I love the little pendant light hanging from the roof. IKEA carries light cords for $5 that plug into an outlet. They also carry cords with fun colors for $8. Add a pendant cover/shade that fits your decor and you have the cutest House Frame Bed on the block!
Reader-Built House Beds
We love seeing photos of what you’ve built using Remodelaholic plans! Send photos to [email protected] or tag #imaremodelaholic on Instagram to show off your work.
Leigh Anne from Houseologie built this house bed following our plans and it turned out so amazing! See some of her tips and more pictures of the beautiful finished room here.
Feb 2018: Reader Alisha submitted this bed that she built and it is perfectly adorable!
“We followed the plans to a T and everything turned out perfect! Made all of the cuts first, then assembled and it came together very easily. Once built, I finished it with a thin coat OF white chalk paint and some light, lanterns and lace overhead. It is gorgeous and cute and we get tons of compliments on it!”
More fun DIY kids’ bed ideas:
Do you have a printable version of these plans? I’m having a hard time reading it with all the ads and the social media sidebar blocks the measurements. Also it’s difficult to copy into a word doc. Thank you.
Hi Natalie,
We sure do — just click the button/link up toward the top of the post and it will be emailed to you 🙂
Is there a video that we can watch of it being built? Thank you!
Hi Phyllis,
We don’t currently have a video but we’ll add this to our list of things to build and video!
Apologies… one more question. We are building this for our granddaughter who lives with her parents. Looks like transporting assembled is impossible so is there a suggestion for primarily building at our home but with minimal final assembly at her home? Suggestions? Thank you!!
I’m so excited to build this! I’ve been looking for a house frame bed plan I like and this looks like the winner! I’m wondering about lowering the support slats to the floor though to make it less of a jump for my 3 year old…has anyone tried that? If not, guess I’ll be the first! Thanks for the plans!
Do you think a trundle would fit under neath it?
It’s possible! It would need to be pretty low with a thin mattress to fit the building plan as it’s written — but the great part about building it yourself is that you could adjust the height of the platform to allow more space for a trundle 🙂
Thanks for the great post! I made this for my 3-year old daughter for Christmas. She slept in her little brothers room last night (Christmas Eve) and my wife and I disassembled her old bed and assembled this one while she slept. Such a fun surprise for her in the morning, the bed turned out great!
If you’re planning on making this, play around with the angled pocket holes to make sure you get it right before sanding everything down. It took me a couple of times before I got it right, but I could just be a novice! Otherwise the instructions worked extremely well for me.
Merry Christmas!
Hi! So we built 2 of these for our kiddos and I love them, but we got our mattresses delivered today and they are too big! What did we do wrong? Any suggestions how to adjust this easily😬
Do you have these plans in a queen size?
Not yet but it’s on our list to do someday! 🙂