Alright. here goes. I bought this bed for my 5 year old daughter. As soon as we saw the picture we loved it. This Loft bed/dresser/closet/desk/6 separate shelves monstrosity WITH and a hideaway. sold. I read so man reviews and I am sooooo happy I did. My highlights and lowlights of putting it together. Hopefully it helps you through it, too.
1. Get rid of the kids for the day, if you can, and eat a hardy breakfast because youre in this for the long haul. I love building furniture from boxes (seriously, its a weird hobby) and it took my husband and I 6 hours with no breaks. Also, I dont know how anyone built this alone with kids present. I pat your back and give you hugs. I wouldve quit after step 8 if I didnt have my husband helping. If you have someone to help, ask them. Youll be happy you did.
2. The bed comes in 3 huge boxes. We somehow got ours into the garage and that is where they stayed. You HAVE to assemble 1 box at a time. DO NOT OPEN ALL 3. Find box 1 with the instructions and hardware and bring the contents wherever you are building. When you finish with box 1 in the instructions THEN and only then open box 2. No joke there are 1025700374 pieces and they are barely marked. Dont make this harder for yourself by thinking you can handle multiple boxes at a time. You cant.
3. SORT THE HARDWARE! Some brilliant person mentioned sorting the hardware into bowls marked with post/its before starting. DO IT. It took about 30 minutes to go through it all but those bags of hardware are for the entire thing not just box 1 and many look very similar. That 30 minute prep saved us soo much time. We sorted and checked off everything including the bed frame pieces before starting so we knew where everything was.
4. Go slow and double check instructions multiple times before tightening those screws. The directions suck. Typical vague pictures with tiny unmarked dots and arrows pointing to holes you cant see. I mean. awful. Check, check and triple check.
5. This thing weighs a ton and a half so build it exactly where its going. Not in the middle of the room or downstairs. Im talking inches from its home. We were 6 inches from the wall it was going against and my everything still hurts from budging it.
6. Have fun music playing or something to keep you calm. Tensions ran high for a second there. it was touch and go. We had our favorite Playlist on and it really did help.
7. This is built with only a screwdriver, Allen wrench and a hammer. ((We used a ratchet screwdriver and it saved my wrist, highly recommended)) It says dont use a drill and we listened but the ladder spindles had us charging the drill real quick. The spindles are solid cylinders without the pre drilled holes. The screws they instructed we use stopped screwing in half way through. We were stuck. so we dug into our drawer of extra screws and found wood screws slightly smaller than the ones recommended. I dont know if that was the best solution or the right choice but we did what needed to be done. I always say listen to the instructions but if I trusted myself enough with a drill and didnt think Id split the wood; I 100 would have installed the the spindles, pre/drilled my own holes in the spindles once I knew where the screws would go and made my life much easier.
To the manufacturers I would say. try and make the instructions more clear. The diagrams arent as self explanatory as you may think. Small steps written with the pictures would have helped tremendously for those spots where the picture isnt conclusive. Im talking about you random piece of wood by desk. I hope I put you in the right spot.
Okay, thats all I have to say, I think. We did it. Minimal damage to my body, spirit and will to live. The bed it beautiful and my daughter is over the moon. Worth it. Good Luck! Thank you so much.
Beautiful Bed! Takes time to build!
Alright. here goes. I bought this bed for my 5 year old daughter. As soon as we saw the picture we loved it. This Loft bed/dresser/closet/desk/6 separate shelves monstrosity WITH and a hideaway. sold. I read so man reviews and I am sooooo happy I did. My highlights and lowlights of putting it together. Hopefully it helps you through it, too. 1. Get rid of the kids for the day, if you can, and eat a hardy breakfast because youre in this for the long haul. I love building furniture from boxes (seriously, its a weird hobby) and it took my husband and I 6 hours with no breaks. Also, I dont know how anyone built this alone with kids present. I pat your back and give you hugs. I wouldve quit after step 8 if I didnt have my husband helping. If you have someone to help, ask them. Youll be happy you did. 2. The bed comes in 3 huge boxes. We somehow got ours into the garage and that is where they stayed. You HAVE to assemble 1 box at a time. DO NOT OPEN ALL 3. Find box 1 with the instructions and hardware and bring the contents wherever you are building. When you finish with box 1 in the instructions THEN and only then open box 2. No joke there are 1025700374 pieces and they are barely marked. Dont make this harder for yourself by thinking you can handle multiple boxes at a time. You cant. 3. SORT THE HARDWARE! Some brilliant person mentioned sorting the hardware into bowls marked with post/its before starting. DO IT. It took about 30 minutes to go through it all but those bags of hardware are for the entire thing not just box 1 and many look very similar. That 30 minute prep saved us soo much time. We sorted and checked off everything including the bed frame pieces before starting so we knew where everything was. 4. Go slow and double check instructions multiple times before tightening those screws. The directions suck. Typical vague pictures with tiny unmarked dots and arrows pointing to holes you cant see. I mean. awful. Check, check and triple check. 5. This thing weighs a ton and a half so build it exactly where its going. Not in the middle of the room or downstairs. Im talking inches from its home. We were 6 inches from the wall it was going against and my everything still hurts from budging it. 6. Have fun music playing or something to keep you calm. Tensions ran high for a second there. it was touch and go. We had our favorite Playlist on and it really did help. 7. This is built with only a screwdriver, Allen wrench and a hammer. ((We used a ratchet screwdriver and it saved my wrist, highly recommended)) It says dont use a drill and we listened but the ladder spindles had us charging the drill real quick. The spindles are solid cylinders without the pre drilled holes. The screws they instructed we use stopped screwing in half way through. We were stuck. so we dug into our drawer of extra screws and found wood screws slightly smaller than the ones recommended. I dont know if that was the best solution or the right choice but we did what needed to be done. I always say listen to the instructions but if I trusted myself enough with a drill and didnt think Id split the wood; I 100 would have installed the the spindles, pre/drilled my own holes in the spindles once I knew where the screws would go and made my life much easier. To the manufacturers I would say. try and make the instructions more clear. The diagrams arent as self explanatory as you may think. Small steps written with the pictures would have helped tremendously for those spots where the picture isnt conclusive. Im talking about you random piece of wood by desk. I hope I put you in the right spot. Okay, thats all I have to say, I think. We did it. Minimal damage to my body, spirit and will to live. The bed it beautiful and my daughter is over the moon. Worth it. Good Luck! Thank you so much.