This year is my junior year in college, and I've just started a new job as an RA. Since I'm an RA, I get a single room. This would be awesome, except for my room is super tiny. To make room for a couch in this tiny room, I set out to make a bed that doesn't take any floor space away from the walls. This is what I came up with!

If you're curious about how I built it or want to build your own, I wrote an in-depth tutorial at my website. Check it out and let me know what you think!
<p>HAMMOCKS!!! :-)</p>
Design is the greatest gift we have for the purpose of conquering adversity. When you take a need, compounded by difficulty, add in various limitations, you have the need for innovation. What you have is the ultimate example of the term, 'Necessity is the mother of invention!' In so doing you more than doubled your usable space, created room for future improvements and incited envy in those who behold your efforts. All in all an amazing transformation to a room that normally attracts ire due to the lack of cleanliness. I can see hanging my dresser and wardrobe from the frame work as well and all the time maintaining a clean room. Add a good hepa air filtration system and you have a very healthy living quarters . Damn good job, the finest example of dorm living I have ever seen!
How are you planning on getting it out? When you move?
I actually gave it to the new RA who took over for me.
I saw a loft bed design a few years ago where they had done a similar design, but instead of having the bed fixed in height, it was on a platform that was attached by cables to the frame and could be raised and lowered as necessary via a winch. I don't remember if it was an electric winch or one of the hand winches like you see on boat trailers. It had a similar frame system that went around the perimeter of the room and the builder would raise it up the the ceiling during the day and then lower it to normal bed height at night.
Cool! Interesting design!
Nice, but couldn't you have saved a lot of wood by doing a normal bunkbed? Personally I think we waste a lot of space w/ our fixation on keeping beds on the floor, we see the bunkbeds as childish but personally being descended from the sort who swung from branches and such, I feel better sleeping with some elevation. Basic psychological thing, you like being the highest thing in the room unless you've got more of the rodent that survived the dinosaurs than the monkey in you (and i get the first too, because tunneling and tunnels in general are also loads of fun). <br><br>I wouldn't mind doing one that's about like a normal bunk bed but not quite as high, more like the height of a normal computer desk then w/ a computer desk and storage set up below it, so you're getting a real good use of floorspace w/o putting it so high up that you might bloody your head on a ceiling joist if things get exciting in the bedroom :D When I first saw yours however though the first thing I thought was that it'd be a perfect sort of modular setup for someone building a shipping container home w/o any interior insulation (the sort where you just pile up dirt with some gravel at the sides for drainage, and only have to insulate the top). Would not only give a good space saving bed but is about the right size to stretch across the room and give you room to mount things to the walls without using an impact drill and compromising the integrity of your house :D ALso probably good for dorms for the same reason tho, because you can hang up big stuff on the walls/bedposts without damaging them too bad or having to spackle the place when you leave. <br><br>Nice project either way.
Looks cool, but would be helpful to put the steps on Instructables. Let me know if you have any questions about how to do that!

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Bio: I'm a student at Iowa State University and I run College Info Geek, one of the web's biggest college blogs. Sometimes I get ... More »
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