Toddler Bed --> Awesome Basement Toy

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It's been a long time coming.  Most 4.5 year olds have moved on from their toddler beds long ago.  But my little guy L-O-V-E-S his car bed.  This is a picture of him when he was 3.

And this was him last week.

Oh, I didn't mention that I bought the bed before he was even born.  I saw it on craigslist for $30 or $40 and knew that one day my little boy would love that bed.  Lol.  No, seriously, it moved with us to this house and was dumped in the basement with all the other toys.  Hahaha!  Look at that picture!

I've been promising to build my little man a tree house bed, but I've been stalling.  With good reason.  The entire upstairs needs new carpet {desperately} and I'm smart enough to hold off on building a monstrous bed until I get the carpet replaced.  The problem is, I am too cheap to hire someone to come replace the carpet.  :(  And even though my the little guy still loves his car bed, he has climbed out of it the past 2 nights to sleep on the floor.  So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the toddler bed is just too darn small.  So out it goes.  Bye-bye toddler bed.  The giraffe swing will miss you.

But don't worry, it's not going far, just back down to the basement where it had lived prior to becoming his bed.  This is what the car looks like in the basement today.  Don't mind my hand painted signs.  I couldn't find any that size, so I just bought foam board and made those.

 

This is what it looked like before we re-finished our basement.  It was a huge favorite with all the kids in the neighborhood.

Here is where the DIY comes in...  I needed to make the car look less like a bed and more like a play set AND make sure it could hold up to 5 little kids in there at a time.  So I removed the crib mattress made a super sturdy replacement.  The vinyl is from Joann Fabric, but I don't see anything online exactly like it.

 

Cause how often do you get to use shiny glittery vinyl like this?  Right??

 

 My happy customers!

What do you think?  Stay tuned for the arrival of the new carpet and the tree house bed.  Coming soon to a little boy's room near you.  Well, maybe not near you.  Unless you live near me.

Thanks for stopping by.  You rock!  Please visit again soon!
- Smart Girl

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