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The girls love their American Girl dolls. Since Leah’s birthday, they’ve been asking for a triple-decker doll bunk bed. After Christmas, I told them we could build one together. They got very excited about the idea, so we embarked on a long-term project to build one.

We started by getting some graph paper and drawing up some designs. From the designs, we created a materials list. Then we headed to Home Depot to buy wood, screws, and paint (thanks to a Home Depot gift card from G’Mom and Grampa). You’ll have to wait till the end to see what color they picked.

We worked on the project over several weekends. We started work in February, but it was very cold in the garage making it hard to motivate ourselves to make too much progress. We still managed to cut several of the pieces (I was the only one to operate the miter saw, but the girls were excellent helpers). They then sanded all the pieces smooth to get them ready to assemble. I used the router to create slots for the side rails.

In May, it warmed up so we managed to pick up the pace and make some significant progress. They also finally got to use some power tools. They used the drill press to drill holes (with counter-sink).

Molly made sure to keep the screw straight up as she drove it in with the impact driver.

After a lot of work, we had 3 frames for the 3 beds.

Leah measured how long the slats needed to be so we could cut them.

And marked where I needed to cut.

And more sanding.

The impact driver works much better if you scrunch up your nose.

Nice job Molly (and nice photobomb, Leah).

Once the beds were constructed, it was time to paint them.

We each painted a bed.

Leah covered the bed well, and her face a little. We put two coats of paint on them (as well as a little touching up).

The final step in construction was to drill hole in the top/bottom of the posts and cut dowels to connect them. Here we are with out finished project.

Jen used her sewing skills to make mattresses, and the dolls were ready to snooze.

I loved working on this project, and the girls seemed to really enjoy it as well. I hope we can do it again soon.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2017 at 6:00 am and is filed under Leah, Molly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.