Starting bunk beds

I put an ad on Craigslist Raleigh advertising custom bunk beds for sale and got way more of a response than I was expecting. I'll go through the sales one at a time to show how I built what I built. The first sale came as a twin over full bunk bed with a slide! I've never built a slide before, no clue how to do that. Turns out the second sale also wanted a slide, so I decided to build them both at the same time. But it starts with the beds....

it starts with a crapload of lumber. There is a sheet of plywood under there for the slide

Lumber is in the shed

I started with the initial cuts for the supports and the frame parts

Supports have been assembled into real parts now

At this point it's important to note how I built the supports. The bottom bed is going to sit 12.5" above the ground. For the full (bottom bunk), I made three supports where a 12.5" block is glued & screwed to an 18" block - the height of the support plus the height of the 2x6 (5.5") from the frame. I also made 4 supports to go on the sides with a 12.5" block on the bottom and an 8" block on the top.

The purpose of these blocks is to create a level surface to set the bed frames. To setup the frames, I cut 2x3's to fit inside of a 2x6 rim. Then I can add 1x3 furring strips for the slats. I put these together with the framing nailer using 3" nails around the 2x boards, and 2" nails for the furring strips. I put 12 furring strips per bed to support the mattress.

Got the 2x3's and the rim nailed up

I screwed down these pressure treated 2x4 blocks to give me an easy jig to make square, exact bed frames

The framing nailer on a completed bed frame. This is the full

and this is the twin - note the extra blocks on the left

I'm ready to hang it up for the night

Here's a dry fit of both frames with all of the supports

3 supports on the front of the full, and 4 supports on the sides for the twin

Now I have added the safety rails up top. They also wanted vertical slats on the bottom

I added 2x2's to create a ladder on the other side

This is finally getting there. I added the safety rails up top and across the bottom. Added a 1x4 to cover the ends of the short supports. This is coming together to be something really cool!

But I got another sale that came in  right after I started this one, and it has a deadline.