I started thinking about this daybed with storage project before our first baby was born about six years ago now. This footprint that the built in daybed takes up now was originally closed off as a closet. That’s how it was when we moved in, an awkward closet with a window in it.
I knew I wanted to take that wall down. It was hard to use as a closet since the doors only allowed us to easily access half of the closet. Plus it seemed like such a shame to not be able to enjoy that window.
At that time I had no idea how to build cabinets and such so I figured I would kind of fake it by buying a couple of premade cabinets and modifying them to work. I ended up taking the top piece off and cutting the legs off of these cabinets pictured below. Originally I was going to do 3 cabinets, and a smaller seating area.
Thankfully I played with what I had around. Since this was a fully furnished home when we bought it we had some twin beds we were not using. After taking that closet wall down, I eventually tried one of the twin mattresses and metal bed frames in this spot. It fit pretty much perfectly with one cabinet on either side, and the baseboard heater pretty much right in front.
That is why it pays to slowly renovate, and to try things out as much as you can before spending a dime. This would have been a totally different build otherwise. The bigger daybed just makes so much more sense in here.
DIY Daybed With Storage-Thought Process Behind It
When we bought our house it only had 4 closets. So it didn’t seem very logical to take a closet out, but as I said before it was not working well as it was. Since we removed that storage area I knew I wanted to take advantage and create as much storage as we could out of this built in daybed.
That is why under the actual daybed is mostly open other than some slats. So we can store a decent amount under there. At the moment it’s mostly full of books for when the kids are older.
I also made it so that the 2 inside bookshelves are removable. It’s not the easiest to access so we store our Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations behind those bookshelves. It works well enough since we only need to access it a couple of times a year.
Obviously the cabinets and bookshelves store a decent amount themselves. Our vinyl record collection lives in the cabinets, as well as the kids photo books and boxes for sentimental items. I also hid some video games in the baskets inside the cabinets.
We mostly use the bookshelves and one of the drawers for the kids toys. I tried to keep it cute for a bit with books and things, but I gave in. It got old picking that stuff up all the time, and worrying about things getting broken. So for now this is how it is, and eventually I will get to style it the way I daydreamed. I quickly staged it here the way I daydreamed, just for fun. Something to look forward to.
DIY Daybed With Storage-How I Built It
The steps I made in order to make this daybed a reality:
- Measure your space, and maybe remeasure just to be sure
- Draw it all out to scale, either by hand with graph paper or using a program. Make sure you give yourself some leeway because most houses old or new do not have perfectly plumb walls. Trim can help cover these gaps, but if you build it too big that’s a lot harder to fix.
- Purchase cabinets, if you want to go the route I did otherwise skip to next step. Like I said it’s been about six years since I started this project and purchased the cabinets I have, but these cabinets here look pretty similar.
- Build filler pieces. For the top and bottom open cabinets/fillers I ripped down 3/4″ plywood and used that for the top, bottom and sides. Then I used lauan for the back. Last I framed out the front with white pine that we ripped down to match the frame width on the cabinets I had purchased.
- I built the inside filler book cases basically the same way as I mentioned in step 4. I just added shelves across and attached them on either side with screws from the outside since they are hidden. I didn’t cut these framing trim pieces down for this part of the built in. I didn’t think it would be worth the effort.
- Install filler pieces and purchased cabinets. I started installing from right to left because the left side of our room has this pipe that I needed to cover, and so I knew I had some wiggle room over there if needed. I made sure the bottom filler piece was against the baseboard heater and level before attaching the purchased cabinet and then the top filler piece.
- Build in place. I built the platform that the right removable bookcase sits on once the front cabinets were installed. Just basically 2x4s covered with a piece of plywood. Once the bookcase was sitting on it then I knew where to put the trim for it. I also made sure I could remove the book case before I moved on from this step.
- Build platform for daybed in place. I basically built a rectangle out of 2 x 6 or 8 and then put slats in between to make sure the mattress and box spring are well supported. There has been lots of jumping on this daybed with kids and large dogs, and she has not budged.
- Repeat steps 6-7 for the opposite side.
- Add trim; crown, baseboard, or side trim where needed. I had to add a soffit to hide some piping to our upstairs bathroom, hopefully you do not need to do this.
- Add corbels if you want to add some character. I found ours at a local antique shop. Originally I planned on using them for a peninsula for our kitchen, but we went a different route in there, and I love them here. Again why it pays to renovate slowly, it takes time to find pieces like these. The daybed would not be nearly as beautiful without these corbels.
DIY Daybed Hindsight-Things I Would Do Differently and Will Do
Let me start by saying how happy I am with the final result of this daybed with storage. Aesthetically and functionality wise I think it is a success. It gets used daily. My son lays here pretty much every morning, and it’s a great snuggly spot. Plus when there’s a sick day or two this is a great spot to nest in.
With all of that said as with most projects there are some things that I learned along the way, and I would probably do better/differently now. The first thing that comes to mind is the smaller gaps I did on the removable bookcases. Visually the smaller gaps make the removable bookcases look better, but I wish I made those gaps a little bigger. It can be pretty tricky getting them in and out sometimes.
The next thing that comes to mind is the soffit. We did that in the beginning, and in hindsight I think it would have been better to do after installing the front filler and cabinet pieces. Because our walls and ceiling are wonky there was a lot of guesstimating and it made for a bit of a headache. We actually had to kind of do it over. Luckily trim hides most sins, and I was able to make it work.
A more fun thing I wish I had done is make or purchase some lumbar or bolster pillow on either side of the daybed. I would like to add more pretty pillows, but at this point in time they would be destroyed pretty fast. I’m hoping as the kids (and dogs, we have a puppy at the moment) get older this will be more doable. Let’s normalize lived in houses, our house is definitely well used and loved.
Thank you for visiting our farmhouse! I hope this helped you get ideas for your own built in daybed with storage or maybe getting creative with storage solutions in your own home. If you missed the last daybed post you can find that here. I also have renovated our kitchen, small bathroom and mudroom if you want to check those out. There’s lots more diy and design tips to come.