For my junior and senior years of college, I moved into a house off campus with some buddies from my fraternity. I was taking the spot of someone who had lived there the year prior, I ended up getting the smallest room in the house. I lived in this room from July 2020 until July 2022

If you know me, you’d know I tend to have a lot of stuff. This doesn’t really work when you have a super small bedroom and closet. I came up with the idea of making a platform bed to have storage underneath and make the most out of the space.

Looking back at it now, I am so upset about the lack of photos I took of this build. I lived in the room for two full years and never got a full shot of it finished. I am learning the hard way that I need to take more photos of stuff so I don’t have this issue.

Anyway, I made this platform that measured about 11′-3″ long x 4′-6″ wide x 2′-8″ tall to have my bed on. Looking at it from left to right, there was a TV stand I made, then a 4′ wide platform that I put carpet on, then the bed itself.

I had space underneath to keep a mini fridge, my shoe rack, and laundry basket at the front with longer term storage in the back. It was the perfect setup for the room at the time and I really liked the coziness of it. I didn’t love how tall it was, that was a bit annoying.

The design of the wood frame was not great looking back at it now, but it served its purpose and didn’t give me too many issues.

The assembly of the frame was a little difficult. I put the top frame together outside then brought that into the room. After that I attached the legs in the corners then did the middle supports. Once it was elevated, I added the slats for the bed and the TV stand. The last step I did was adding the platform with carpet. I believe this is what held me back from having a good final product photo, I think I took 3-4 weeks to actually cut and put on the platform.

This was one of my most enjoyable, useful, and complimented projects I’ve made. I even think I might have gotten my internship from it, one of the interviewers asked about a time I built something with my hands and I was able to lift my laptop (zoom interview in 2020) and show off the bed frame I made. This project also made me think outside the box on a way to make the most out of the space. I had a few iterations of the design that included smaller footprints but I’m glad I went with the one I did. One page that is related to this build topic that I find enjoyment in now is called Never Too Small, it is a architecture design page about smaller, sustainable living.