Big Boy Beds for Big Boys

With baby #3 on the way, we have high hopes and dreams of turning our 2 bedroom home into a 3 bedroom home (hoping to add a real master bedroom on the main level). Our bedrooms are located on the 2nd story of our house. Currently Reub and I sleep in one; the boys share the other one. Since Jase has been around 2.5-3 years old, he's been sleeping in a little, cheap Toy Story toddler bed. It's been a good bed, but Jase is getting so tall, it's really getting too small for him now. Ian still sleeps in the baby crib (nope, he has not figured out how to climb out yet). We've realized we'll need the crib a few weeks after the baby is born, so I thought it'd be better to start transitioning Ian into a "real" bed right now...so by the time baby is here, ideally I won't have any trouble getting him to stay in bed for naps and at nighttime.

I've been watching a local online site that's kind of like a "craigslist" of used items. If anything decent popped up for a good price, it sold so stinkin' fast before I could get my hands on it. Or it was plain ugly. Or not sturdy enough. Etc etc. I went to the Downeast Home Outlet (lots of pottery barn markdowns) and found 2 matching espresso colored twin beds that were pretty awesome. They were dinged up a bit, but marked down on clearance for $250 each. I had the store hold them while I thought about what to do....I went back to the store and sweated out the pros and cons, finally deciding it was just too much for what we should be doing right now. So I passed. We looked around at some furniture stores in town, but couldn't seem to find anything cute (and solid wood) for less than $500 (for both). Well the other day Reub took us to a furniture outlet place and I did NOT expect to find anything there that I liked. Surprise! We found a black, solid wood bunk bed set for $280! It was really sturdy, and the headboard and footboard had a lower height than the Pottery Barn beds I previously had my heart set on (we needed them to be lower bc the boys have slanted walls in their room due to the A-frame house). The only thing I didn't love was that the bed had these BRASSY gold colored screws holding it all together. Blech. But nothing that a little paint couldn't fix! I paid the man (and in the meantime picked up some high quality mattress protectors by "Sleep Tite" that I had seen for only $29 each on Amazon. The manager tried to sell me some at the furniture store, but when I told him about the Amazon price he matched it for me--bonus!). I'm glad we ended up getting twin beds that can be bunked in case we ever need to do that. We also price shopped for twin mattresses and found the best price on a basic Serta mattress at Sam's Club for $99 each. We'd seen cheaper ones for about $79, but they were really cheap-o and you've never even heard of the manufacturer!

Last night Reub got them all put together and they look SO CUTE! He also painted all the screws with some leftover black marine paint (shouldn't chip) and it looks amazing. I was wondering how Ian would do his first night in a twin bed, but he did great (probably bc it was late and he was too tired to object). The "top bunk" bed comes with built-in railings all around it, so we put Ian in that bed. The funny thing was that later that night (after the boys were asleep), I was in the kitchen doing dishes and heard the loudest "thud"! Jase is the one who fell out of his twin bed, LOL. I thought I'd hear lots of crying next, but he just climbed back in and went back to sleep. I'm going to try to stick a swimming pool "noodle" under the fitted sheet along the edge of the bed until he gets used to it (I've heard that little trick works, we'll see).

The great thing about saving $200 between the bunks and the Pottery Barn Beds was that it allowed me to spend some money on cute bedding (I really wanted some PB quilts for $179 each, but let's be realistic here--I am not that rich, haha). I found 2 different but coordinating quilt and sham sets at Target. A space rocket themed one for Jase; and a construction themed one for little Ian. I also picked up two twin sheet sets that are navy blue and white pinstripes (they are so cute)! Here's to hoping no one pukes on these quilts for a long, long time, hahaha. This first one is Ian's bed. I forgot to buy extra pillows for the shams, so they are just "draped" on top of the other pillow. You can see the navy blue pinstriped sheet set at the top. The quilt even has some coudoroy (sp?) pieces sewn onto it for texture.

Ian's bed (has rails around it) w/ Construction themed quilt.

 This next one is Jase's bed. You can see the actual bed frame much better in this picture than in the previous one. Simple, curved headboard and footboard with vertical slats. This is also the room that was decorated in fall tones when they were babies, so I have some repainting and such to do (walls are kind of a dark, neutral brownish grayish green tone). And you can also see my floor rug kind of clashes with the new, brighter bedding. I will fix that eventually!

Jase's Outer Space Bed!

Top view of Jase's bed.  Too bad you can't see the details better (like the stitching, etc). And yes, he still sleeps with that little blue bear and also Jo Jo, the elf.