Pull-out alcove bed with storage
In this room the bulkhead of the stairs took up a lot of space and made one of the walls difficult to furnish. The client brief for this project was deceivingly straight forward:
- Create a built-in bed with as much storage as possible
- Hide the stair bulkhead
- Use IKEA products where possible, but definitely use IKEA HEMNES as the client already had one spare.
The outcome is an alcove bed which can be pulled out to become a double. It has three bespoke deep cupboards on top, 2.5 drawers in the bed base and a wardrobe tall enough to hang coats. It also boasts a side shelf and a nook with a bookshelf.
This project is a good example of how IKEA pieces can be used to create high quality built-ins without it necessarily looking new or modern. In this instance using IKEA items made perfect sense, as they weigh less – something that might be annoying for stand-alone furniture, but for a project like this is ideal.
A view of the space and the finished product. The bed was built to the width of the bulkhead to hide it completely.
The structure is starting to take shape. The hole in the panelling was cut so that the client could access the plugs there.
Storage has been installed.
The cupboards are IKEA PLATSA frames, and to match the depth of the alcove two frames were combined for each cubby so they’re 90cm deep – perfect for storing bedding.
The wardrobe is another IKEA PLATSA that was modified to sit on top of the bulkhead to make use of the space.
This is what it will look like with the bed in place.
Parts of the IKEA HEMNES day-bed was used for this pull-out bed; the hardware, slats, wheeled legs and two of the drawers. Because of the bulkhead the bed was slightly raised and a new front was created.
Cladding is done, with a nice arch to soften the look.
Trim and paint added.
Doors and drawer fronts installed with lovely polished brass knobs that match the hardware on the sash windows.
These shelves are created from discarded floorboards, which ties the room together nicely.
Some clever uses of dead space
Instead of just covering up this space at the bottom of the wardrobe cutoffs from the cabinets and wardrobe itself were used to create another storage area.
There was some dead space behind the wardrobe, so an arched opening was cut out to create a book nook.
To keep the symmetry of the drawers and to make use of the space available, one of them was modified to accommodate the bulkhead.
