Toddler bed to reading bench

We moved both girls into twin beds back in October. I was planning on selling Jocelyn’s toddler bed on Craigslist but then this great idea to turn it into a child’s bench. Well, I finally got around to turning that idea into reality.

Here is what the bed looked like before. (I must apologize for the terrible photos throughout this post. The room I was working in had little light.)







I started by taking the entire thing apart. I cut about a foot off of each side piece and then reattached them to the headboard.

This little square board was used as a center support on the bed. One side was attached to this side piece while the other side was attached to another board. I just moved it over a little and drilled some new holes in the side. (please excuse the mess)

I put one of the braces back in but I had to cut the other one to fit.

I also cut one of the bottom boards lengthwise to fit.

I was planning on using two pillows. One for the seat and one against the back. However the one for the seat did not provide enough cushion and was not that comfortable. I really didn’t want to spend any extra money to buy foam (that stuff is expensive) so I decided to see what I could do with the toddler mattress.

I measured how large I would need it to be and started cutting though the material. Once I cut all the way around, I used some wire clippers to clip off the wires at the springs. I did my best to twist the remaining wire around the springs and make sure that all of the ends were facing towards the center.

Once I was happy with the size and all the wires were in place I used a hot glue gun to glue the open end shut. (Very professional, right!)

After the glue dried I slipped a large pillow case over the mini mattress and plopped it on the bench!! It looked perfect. I then took the bench outside, sanded it and gave it a couple coats of red spray paint.

I’m pretty sure Serenity would lounge around on this thing all day if I let her.

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5 thoughts on “Toddler bed to reading bench

  1. Awesome! I like how it turned out! Gives me inspiration for when I get ready to move my daughter to a twin bed and we can do this to her toddler bed! We'd love it if you'd share this at our Home is Where the Heart is! homesteadsimple.com/home-is-where-the-heart-is-link-it-up-wednesdays-1/
    and any other posts you'd like to share that have to do with homesteading and homemaking!

  2. I love this! We are little ways off from getting rid of our toddler bed but this is a great idea for what to do with it when our little moves into a big boy bed!

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