Loft Bed Plans - Family Fun Magazine

Aside from the goofy title of their website and magazine, these loft bed plans are a pretty decent set of instructions - not to mention that they're free. The drawings give you a nice, quick overview of how the bed goes together - which is always nice when you're starting from scratch. It also fits the bill for simple construction, using 2x4s, 2x8s, and plywood. And to avoid having to use expensive tools for the joinery, the Family Fun style is to make wood joints by sandwiching boards on top of one another, which creates the necessary notches and recessed areas for making two boards come together in a snug union, Everything else pretty much goes together with full-lap joinery, which simply means you slap two boards on top of each other and nail or screw then together.

More about the drawings - they're nice, easy-to-understand illlustrations. Can't say as much about the text that goes along. Which puzzles me a little about almost all instructions that I try to read. Does anyone really follow along, word by word, with this stuff? I'm not sure what kind of brain can keep up with this kind of writing. It's like trying to read a legal contract. Sure, all the details are probably there somewhere, and in a court of law it would probably hold its ground. But all I want to do is build a loft bed. So I have to assume that most people (like me) just stumble through the pictures and hope there's nothing they missed in the fine print. Oh well.

Overall, the loft bed plans from Family Fun (did I mention that's a ridiculous name?) will give you a pretty good idea about how to go about building the project. And keep in mind that with any project plan, you don't always have to follow the instructions letter by letter. Just get a basic idea of how the joinery works (to maintain strength and stability) and then improvise your own design.