DIY Parents Create Stunning Bunk Bed Boho Room For Twins For Just £1,500
- Yazmin Dunn, 31, and Phil Southam, 36, wanted to give their daughters more space
- They built an amazing double loft bed for £1,000
- They also added furnishings from Amazon, Shein, B&M and The Range for £500
Kids grow up quickly, and before you know it, it’s time to turn the nursery into a teenager’s room.
One couple wanted to give their twins a stunning new room but had to put their thinking caps on about how they could make the most of the space in the small room as well as keep costs down.
Yazmin Dunn, 31, a photographer, and her partner Phil Southam, 36, a painter and decorator, came up with a brilliant idea of making two loft beds, giving their daughters plenty of room to do homework and play underneath their beds.
The Exeter-based couple, who have four children, built the beds themselves from MDF, and transformed the room into a cool boho space.
The entire transformation cost them £1,500, a huge saving, as they estimate professional builders would have charged them double that.
Yaz told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk: “Our two 11-year-old girls are starting high school next year and since the beginning of this year they've begged and begged us to redo their room.
"They say they want it more grown-up now as before it was very pink and flowery.
"We briefly spoke about this with them and they said they wanted a loft bed design because their room isn't very big so this way it gives them more floor space and they said they wanted a boho grey room.
“My partner is a painter and decorator by trade so luckily he's very handy to have around the house, and he can pretty much build anything.
"Our girls went away for three days visiting family and we don't often get much time away from them so we took this chance to completely transform their room as a surprise for Christmas.
"We worked every day from morning till gone midnight.
"We started planning everything a couple of months ago.
“We would sit down and I would draw out the design and he would go over it letting me know what would and wouldn't work.
"We went back and forth with this for ages until we had a general plan of how we wanted it. He built it all from scratch out of MDF and we adjusted the design as he was building it too because we realised some things wouldn't work and it obviously needed to be supported correctly too for safety.
"The bed and all of the cabinets and wardrobes are all made out of MDF and solid wood for the supports. We then added edging to make it all look properly finished.
“We filled it all, sanded it all down and painted it in diamond satin colours requested by our girls.
"It was a rough few days and we pretty much lived off of takeaways and energy drinks and we are both aching like we've been to the gym!
"Now that it's finished we love it.
“It was definitely worth the few hard days of work. It's made their smallish room look bigger, and it's something they can grow with as they get older and a space they can relax and be proud of if they have their friends over.
"All in all, the whole room including all of the paint, gloss, wood and furnishings probably cost around £1,500. If we’d bought one new I think it would have cost at least double what we paid!
“It's more than we initially wanted to spend, but it'll last and our girls are absolutely over the moon so that's the main thing. We've hardly seen them since they've been home!
"Some tips I'd give anyone wanting to create something like this is to definitely give yourself longer than three days.
“Ideally, we would have liked a week to complete it all because there are certain parts we had to rush, but we, unfortunately, didn't have this much time.
"I'd also recommend making sure you have a big enough space to work in. My partner had to cut and shape all of the wood in their small room and it was a bit of a disaster - there was sawdust all over the house!
"I'd also recommend taking enough time to design all of the aspects and be open-minded if you need to change parts of the design.
“We realised two or three parts of the design wouldn't work halfway through building it so we had to get creative on different ways to make everything fit, but still look good too.
"The bed materials itself cost about a grand from B&Q, Brewers, and Tool Station.
“The furnishings - including a new £160 carpet - cost around £500.
"I got most of the furnishings from Amazon, Shein, B&M and The Range.”
Yaz and Phil are delighted with the finished result of all their hard work - and their daughters are absolutely thrilled with their cool new space.
"It was a lot of hard work honestly because we had to cut and shape each bit of wood and get it all to fit perfectly,” Yaz adds.
“With only three days to do it, there were a couple of moments where I wondered if we've made a mistake.
“We didn't really realise until starting it just how much was involved.
“However, now that it's done we are thrilled with it!
“It was nice to do it ourselves because my partner could make it completely custom to what our girls wanted, and with the space we had available, and with it being such a small room we were able to design it around them having more floor area too.
"If we purchased something like this in a shop we would have been more limited in design and it probably wouldn't have fit as well in their space unless we actually paid someone else to measure and fit a custom bed for us.
"I’m so glad my partner was up to the challenge.
"To buy something like this or to pay someone else to make it, it would have probably cost double what we spent if not more including the labour.
“We are both super happy with the finished result and our two girls absolutely love it. They said 'it's the best room we've ever had!’”
Tom Church, co-founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, comments: “Doing a project like this isn’t easy, but it really does pay dividends when you see the end result.
“Yaz and Phil have saved themselves a fortune by not getting contractors in, and their daughters will always know how much love, blood, sweat and tears their parents poured into the project!
“Not all of us have the DIY skills to attempt something like this, but that’s why practice makes perfect.
“Even if you’ve never picked up a screwdriver before, start small, follow YouTube tutorials and one day you could be following in Yaz and Phil’s footsteps!"
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