18 DIY Platform Beds You Can Build in One Weekend

Two hundred dollars of lumber against two thousand for the bed you actually want is the math that starts most of these 18 DIY platform beds. No box spring, no creaking metal frame, and in most cases a row of drawers or open cubbies where dead space used to be. You will find nine IKEA kitchen cabinets standing in as a bed base you can walk inside, a pair of pallets on castors for a toddler’s first big bed, an upholstered build that came in at two hundred and seventy eight dollars against a twenty five hundred dollar original, and a mid century frame in plain pine that came to a hundred and seventy five. Cut lists, plans and honest costs are on the tutorials. One of these is still our own big list of DIY bed frames if you would rather go traditional.

DIY Platform Bed Frame Ideas

1. DIY Platform Bed And Salvaged Door Headboard

Photograph of a chunky stained wood platform bed with white bedding under two pale green salvaged doors used as a headboard

Two salvaged doors stood on end behind a chunky stained platform is one of the cheapest ways to get a headboard that reaches the ceiling. The bed itself has a full queen cut list: 1×10 rails at eighty and a half inches and sixty two inches, four 4×4 legs at sixteen inches, 2×4 supports behind every face, seven 2×4 platform supports and sixteen short 1×6 pieces wrapping the legs. Twelve half inch lag bolts with washers do the visible fixing. Snap a chalk line an inch and a half down from the top of each 1×10 and the support 2x4s land in the right place every time.

Get the full tutorial at Averie Lane.

2. DIY King Sized Bed

Photograph of a white king bed with a framed panel headboard and two storage drawers built into the base

A king bed with drawers down both sides and a storage compartment through the middle, built by two sisters for around five hundred dollars in materials and heavy enough that it takes two people to shift. The plans are split across four posts covering the frame and center storage, the drawers, the footboard and feet, and the headboard and final assembly, with the index page collecting all four. One useful answer buried in the comments: the feet are fixed by drilling a three quarter inch hole about half way into each foot, then a pilot hole the rest of the way, then at least two lag screws per foot.

Get the full tutorial at Do It Yourself Divas.

3. IKEA Hack Platform Bed

Photograph of a platform bed base built from pale flat pack cabinet units with a built in step, topped with patterned bedding

A platform bed built by stacking flat pack cabinet units into a base and laying a deck over the top, which is the fastest route to a storage bed for anyone who does not want to cut a full cut list. The units arrive square and finished, so the work is arranging them to the mattress footprint, securing them to each other and topping them with a solid deck. Leave one unit facing outward at the foot for books or baskets. This is Sueeye’s own tutorial and it walks the whole build, including how the cabinets are joined so the base behaves as a single piece.

Get the full tutorial at Sueeye.

4. Build Your Own Platform Bed Frame

Photograph of a tall dark stained plank sided platform bed with black bedding and a white tufted headboard

A dark stained plank bed with solid panel sides and a white tufted headboard, built to the exact footprint of a king mattress at seventy six by eighty inches. The sides are horizontal deck boards rather than one wide sheet, which uses cheap narrow stock and gives a plain box some rhythm, with 2x6s behind every face carrying the load and taking all the screws. Sand with medium and then fine grit, stain in Minwax Dark Walnut and finish with one heavy coat of satin poly. Build the sides flat and carry them up in pieces if your stairwell is narrow.

Get the full tutorial at Grandma's House DIY.

5. Malm Captain's Bed

Photograph of a raised bed platform built around a pale birch six drawer dresser with green bedding beside a window

A six drawer dresser stays completely free standing and an L shaped table gets built around it, which is what makes this one reversible and why the dresser itself is never cut. The room is six feet by seven, the dresser is sixty three inches wide and nineteen deep, and the finished bed measures seventy four by fifty four for a full mattress, so the built structure only has to make up the difference. Legs are 2x4s doubled up, connected and stiffened by cladding more 2×4 around the inside perimeter, with a plywood top and a matching shelving board on the exposed end.

Get the full tutorial at IKEA Hackers.

6. DIY Plywood Platform Bed

Photograph of a low plywood platform bed with open cubbies and a wide side ledge in a loft bedroom with a green accent wall

A low platform in plain plywood and dimensional lumber with open cubbies down the long side, sitting almost on the floor in a loft style room. The free plan behind it builds the cubby cases into the sides and the end, so the storage is part of the frame rather than bolted onto it. Three quarter inch plywood makes the cases and the deck, 2x4s carry the side supports and 1x4s make the slats, with cutting diagrams for twin through king. Letting the deck run past the mattress on the open side gives you a ledge instead of a nightstand.

Get the full tutorial at Lowe's.

7. Super Easy Platform Bed With Storage

Typeset graphic reading DIY Platform Bed with Storage over three photos of a white storage bed on castors

A full size storage bed on wheels, built as two separate boxes screwed together so each half could be carried into a small guest room. MDF kept the cost down at around thirty one dollars a sheet over four sheets, which is far less than hardwood and perfectly sensible since the whole thing was being painted anyway. Six castors go on, three of them locking, because the wheels against the wall can never be reached to lock. Finished dimensions are fifty five inches wide, seventy six long and fourteen and a half inches high, and a rug pad underneath stops the mattress sliding.

Get the full tutorial at Chatfield Court.

8. DIY Twin Bed from Wood Pallets

Four panel collage of a dark stained pallet bed, typeset words DIY Twin Bed from Wood Pallets, a castor detail

Two pallets laid side by side make a twin bed for a toddler moving out of a crib, and the whole thing came to forty six dollars because the stain and sealer were already in the garage. Home Depot sold the pallets at fifteen dollars each, which took some explaining at the counter. The overhanging ends of the support boards get cut flush first, then 2×4 studs run the full length along each side and one more down the center for the inevitable jumping. Castors were fitted instead of legs and earned their keep the moment the finished bed had to move.

Get the full tutorial at Couple Jones.

9. Twin Storage Bed

Two panel image of a cream twin storage bed with open cubbies above a labeled 3D diagram showing 76 inch length

A twin captain’s bed with storage on three sides, and free plans with a full cut list, which is rare for this style. The end unit is a straightforward box: 1×12 boards at thirty nine inches for the top and bottom, fifteen inch sides, a center divider, a quarter inch plywood back and 1×2 trim on the face. Eleven 1×3 slats at fifteen and a half inches span the width. Build the box with two inch screws and glue and check it for square before anything else goes on, then attach the back with inch and a quarter screws.

Get the full tutorial at Ana White.

10. DIY Reclaimed Wooden Bed

Five panel collage of stacked reclaimed boards, a paper template being drawn, and a finished scalloped headboard bed

Wood pulled from a friend’s torn up deck became a queen farmhouse bed with a scalloped headboard, which is a good reminder that the best free lumber is usually a neighbor’s demolition. The headboard shape is drawn on a large sheet of paper folded in half so both sides match, unfolded, taped to the laid out boards and traced, then cut board by board with a jigsaw. The frame is a simple box with legs, a 1×2 ledger an inch below the top on each side plus a 2×4 down the middle, and ten 1×4 slats laid across.

Get the full tutorial at The Accent Piece.

11. Storage Platform Bed

Photograph of a raised platform bed built on white kitchen cabinets with a wooden top and a built in staircase of three steps

Nine flat pack kitchen cabinets, four at eighty centimeters, one at sixty and four at forty, make a raised bed base you can physically walk into. Nothing is fixed to the walls or the floor; the cabinets sit on a painted timber footing with felt pads underneath and the weight of the bed holds it all in place. Fifteen millimeter plywood tops the cabinets to level everything and finish it. One eighty centimeter cabinet is left with no back, which becomes the doorway into the storage space, and two more get sawn down to make the steps up.

Get the full tutorial at Oh Yes Blog.

12. DIY Modern Wood Platform Bed

Four panel photo of a pale wood platform bed with three smaller photos of the frame being assembled on the floor

A low modern platform in plain construction lumber with a simple angled headboard, published as a video build rather than written up in photographs. The page hosting it is a design site that introduces and embeds the tutorial; the build itself belongs to HomeMade Modern, so watch it there rather than looking for a cut list on this page. What the photographs make plain is the shape worth copying. The deck is a plain run of boards sitting almost on the floor with nothing underneath it, and the headboard is one wide plank leaned back off the end.

Get the full tutorial at Contemporist.

13. Make Your Own Upholstered Bed

Typeset graphic reading Make Your Own Upholstered Bed around a photograph of a cream upholstered bed

A queen upholstered bed copying a twenty five hundred dollar designer original, finished for about two hundred and seventy eight dollars with coupons and sales. The materials list is unusually complete: six yards each of fabric, muslin and eight pound batting, a half inch plywood sheet for the headboard, three quarter inch for the platform, twelve 1×4 slats, 3×3 stock for the legs and nailhead trim. Two pieces of advice from the build are worth more than the cut list. Do not skip the muslin layer under the good fabric, and use a pneumatic staple gun rather than an electric one.

Get the full tutorial at View Along the Way.

14. Mid Century Inspired DIY Bed

Two panel graphic comparing an $899 store bed above and a $175 handmade mid century bed below, with typeset DIY Bed Tutorial

A mid century bed copying a store design, built for a hundred and seventy five dollars against eight hundred and ninety nine for the original. The frame is pine, mostly 1×4 and 1×8 stock with cheap 1×3 slats, joined with dowel pins, wood glue and three inch screws because the builders owned neither a router nor a pocket hole jig. The first real step is making a jig from two offcuts and a clamp, which marks the exact center of a board and a point an inch in from each end, so every dowel hole in every mitered corner lands in the same place.

Get the full tutorial at Bigger Than the Three of Us.

15. DIY Chic White Platform Pallet Bed

Photograph of a white painted pallet platform bed with gray bedding against a gray block wall with candles

Pallets stacked flat and painted white, with the bed sitting on top and a wide painted ledge running around all four sides. This is an idea page rather than a step by step, so the method stays at the level the source supports. Stack pallets to whatever height suits you, join them so the stack behaves as one piece, and paint everything the same white so the stringers and blocks read as a design detail instead of shipping timber. Two more ideas from the page are worth the effort: run lights underneath for a glow at night, and add a headboard.

Get the full tutorial at 99 Pallets.

16. Platform Bed With Storage And Free Plans

Typeset graphic reading platform bed tutorial with storage and free plans over a photograph of a wood storage bed

A storage bed built as a series of identical boxes, which means learning one box gets you a daybed, a full or a king from the same instructions. Three quarter inch hardwood plywood is ripped to the cut list widths on a table saw, or cut at the store if you do not own one, then marked every nineteen and a quarter inches and squared off before cutting. Assembly is glue and a nail gun: back panel, both sides, top, bottom, then 2×4 feet cut to three inches and a board to hold the filler panel, with 1×3 trim last.

Get the full tutorial at Diva of DIY.

17. Modern Platform Bed for Under $100

Photograph of a plain low platform bed base made from MDF sheets on a wooden frame in a bedroom with lilac walls

A modern platform bed with a published materials list that adds up to under a hundred dollars, and the prices are itemized rather than estimated: ten 2x4x96 at two dollars eleven each, six 2x10x8 at seven ninety nine, and two sheets of three quarter inch MDF at twenty two ninety nine. Tools are a miter saw, a circular saw and a drill, which is about as short as a bed building tool list gets. The original step by step this page once pointed at has gone offline, so treat it as a shopping list and a shape to copy.

Get the full tutorial at Curbly.

18. Dresser Platform Bed

Two panel photo of a gray platform bed built from two low dressers, with the end bookshelf full of board games

Two purpose built low dressers set eighteen inches apart, with bookshelves closing the foot end, making a bed that is almost entirely storage. The dresser tops run sixty five by twenty inches here, sized around a hand me down full mattress but planned to take a queen. The detail worth copying is in the back panels: grooves an inch and a quarter deep and three quarters wide are cut along the top edge so cross pieces can span the gap between the two dressers and carry the mattress slats. Three grooves were cut and the builder wishes he had cut four.

Get the full tutorial at DIY Projects.