Have you checked out Gumtree’s new mobile app? Gumtree challenged a few of us bloggers to summon our inner Suzelle by purchasing an item with their mobile app and then giving it new life with a little bit of love and some DIY. The app is super user friendly and I easily found an awesome raised loft bed for my almost five year old son under the ‘Baby & Kids – Children’s Furniture’ category.

Ilan was super stoked with his new ‘big boy bed’, but just as soon as we gave him his ‘new’ bed, we had to take it apart again to fix it up! This is the before pic:

So, what did we do to upcycle this bed?

STEP ONE: We phoned a friend to help us take the bed apart, sand it and paint it with two coats of white Velvaglo. (TIP: I bought a drip sheet for R17 from Mica which was a winner.)

STEP TWO: The ladder was sanded down really well and spray painted (so much cheaper than buying a tin of paint).

STEP THREE: The bed was re-assembled in Ilan’s room – not an easy feat!

STEP FOUR: We placed a 2 x 1 m artificial grass mat under the bed – we used the company Forest Grass in Century City. We had spotted them at Decorex a few weeks ago and then were recommended to contact them through this competition. We chose their best-seller for indoor use, the Constantia Spring artificial grass, which is a lovely bright green colour and at 30mm thick, it is super comfy to collapse down onto it.

STEP FIVE: Voila! Done. Although I would still like to place some lighting under the bed and some more bookshelves, I am impressed that we were able to pull this off in less than a week. I recommend setting yourself a DIY deadline!

Thank you to everyone for entering and for all your fantastic #DIY suggestions.  I read through all of the entries and chose #DIY advice from Amy Ahrens. Yay! You’ve won a R2000 @home voucher from Gumtree. Thank you especially for recommending Forest Grass as the best local supplier for artificial grass – you were spot on!

I would paint this cool loft bed white and the ladder a bright colour (sand and prime it before painting so the paint is nice and durable). I would create a ‘work’ area at the one end of the bed by adding a desk and a pin board on the wall. At the other end I would make a reading nook by laying down some astro / artificial grass (Forest Grass is amazing – we have got Constantia Autumn in our garden, but Constantia Spring would be cool for a kids room!), throwing in a poof or some big, chunky cushions and hanging rope light around the edge of the underneath of the bed. You could also get a couple of wooden boxes (try Woodstock), paint them white while you are painting the bed and add caster wheels. Then you have some fun, mobile storage boxes for toys or books that look great and can be kept in the ‘Ilan den’ too! I think this would be an easy, timeless and affordable upcycle!

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