Boring Old College Dorm Room Bed - Becomes 4 Poster Bed Fit for a King!

I found out that undergraduates aren't allowed to "Loft" their beds (get extra legs, to lift up the bed twice as high in order to put desk under the bed and give free space to the room). Also I was limited in what I could do as to the fact that NO holes, damage, scrapes or scratches could be put on/into any furniture the school provided AND I couldn't put any holes in the walls/ceiling/floor etc.

I decided to turn my boring old dorm bed into a Mini 4 Poster bed with head and foot board as well as add some additional accessories that every inventor needs.

What you will need:

- At least 20 carraige bolts (6-8" in length and I usually go with 5/16 diameter, but that's just my preference)
- 20 washers/nuts to go with the bolts.
- 8 2x4's
- Lots of Zip ties (the strong kind, not those little computer cable kinds as these will hold the structure together while your drilling the holes for the bolts etc.)
- C-clamps help but aren't necessary.
- Saw (I have a jig-saw but most people don't bring that to college, so you can get a regular hand saw for 10$ at Lowe's)
- Box of 2" wood screws
- Drill
- Scissors (to cut excess off the zip ties if you decide to keep any on after the project is complete)

Optional Supplies:
- Plywood (for mounting things to as you'll see later on in the project.)
- A marker Board the width of the bed.
- Probably a sharpie or pencil, and a measuring tape or ruler.

Cost of items: I already had everything except the wood, but here's my guestimation:
Wood: $20-40 (depending on what kind of wood you get)
Saw: $10
Zip ties: $7
Screws: $6

In This Step I Dragged the Bed Away From the Wall to Give Me Room to Work, Attaching the Horizontal Frame

Lots of zip ties are never a bad thing, and Clamps will help a lot if your room mate is never around / is too lazy to help you. Also you may notice that with the help of zip ties I have a paper towel holder and old Pringles box that serves as my key, wallet, cigs, etc holder when I first come into the room.

All in all it's a pretty simple construction. Just create an Endo and Exo skeleton within and around the entire bed.

Adding the Foot-board

I used Hardwood Oak from Lowe's. its $50 for a 6x8 foot, which is pretty expensive by college dorm living standards, but it's the strongest plywood they sell and in the next few steps you'll understand why I needed it to be strong.

Also as you can see I added another 2x4 across the top to give it more anti-swaying support.

NOTE - You might want to take your sheets off your bed for this, since there was a lot of sawing / drilling involved. I ended up having to wash mine anyway with all the sawdust that got all over them.

Mounting Your 40" TV

I got a TV mounting kit again from Lowe's (I kinda live there with how much time I spend wandering around the aisles. When mounting expensive items, it doesn't hurt to not be cheap. I think the mount cost about $40, and i've had it up for about 8 months with no problems.

I didn't get the mount with a lot of swivel abilities, because I'm more of a build it sturdy kind of guy.

TV Mounted Yaay

Pretty self-explanatory, I recommend someone help you with this part. Better safe than sorry.

Also you can kind of see the marker board that I got and mounted as my headboard.

XBOX (or Playstation If You Must), Shelf

Its just a little piece of 2x4 shelf, then I drilled a little hole behind it for a couple zip ties to wrap around and hold it all in place.

You can also see my cup holder held on by zip ties (made from a wire mesh pen holder. and my alarm clock also zip tied to the bed.

Attach Wires and Your Good to Go.

Running wires is pretty easy if your mount can tilt enough for you to reach behind it and hook everything up. If your really tall you might want to cut a couple holes in the plywood with a Forstner bit and feed all the wires behind and possibly mount the xbox on the other side so you don't kick something in your sleep.

It is truly the most comfy college home theater system ever constructed.

Even the RA and building supervisor when doing a walk through wanted to take pictures and show all their friends exclaiming "they'd never seen anything like it."

PS - before mounting anything valuable I recommend you actually try to break it, ie, see how much stress you can put on it to make sure your construction abilities are up to par before you attach anything of value to it. I'm comfy with my abilities, therefore trust my own judgement to mount my own TV to it, but I want you all out there in Instructable Land to be very sure of its sturdiness before these later steps.

Try inviting your bf/gf over to simulate any "motions-in-the-ocean" that might occur on the bed to see how much it will "shake", if the structure wiggles around, you might be better off attaching more cross beams etc before putting up the TV.

Just an Overview of All the Angles Including Under the Bed and on Every Side. I'll Photo Tag Important Stuff

Questions comments concerns?