Everleigh's Big Girl Bed - SUCCESS

For those of you who've actually met our bear Everleigh... you know just how incredibly TALL this girl is.  At 28 months she's at least 36" tall and in the 98th percentile in both height and weight for her age.  With that being said, a couple months ago, Chad and I began to talk about when and how we would eventually transition her over to a big girl bed.  She hadn't QUITE grown out of her crib yet and had never given us issues climbing out so IMMEDIATELY this Momma Bear had reservations on making this transition at all.  It seemed silly to mess with a good thing...am I right?  Chad on the other hand, had a glimmer in his eye and an idea growing in his head.  There was no stopping him now.  ;)  

With a spare FULL sized bed in one of our guest rooms, we immediately thought that the smart, and most cost effective option would be to take that bed and BUILD Everleigh her own day bed.  Finding inspiration on Pinterest, Chad and I put our heads together to come up with a plan that would be the easiest for us to implement.  And when I say US, I mean HIM.  ;)  

I couldn't be more proud of my handy dandy husband and his first real build.  It turned out AMAZING and after four full nights of sleeping in her very own "Big Girl Bed", I think it's safe to say that this transition has been SUCCESSFUL!  (At least until she figures out that she can actually climb out of bed whenever she wants.  ;)  

For posterity sake, (and so Everleigh will hopefully one day truly appreciate the bed her dad made her with his own two hands), here's a quick glance of how it all came together.  

Boards cut.

Some assembly required ;)

The day bed "arms"

Double checking the fit

Decisions, decisions...

Painting in progress

Time for the headboard

Used a jig saw to cut out the curves

And we used a sparkly pink fabric over a mattress pad and some batting that we used to cover the board.  

Unfortunately, you can't truly appreciate the sparkle affect of the headboard unless you see this in person.  

We used the same process to "pad" this headboard as we did on our master headboard project.  You can see more on that project by following the link HERE.

We chose not to tuft this particular headboard like we did in our master bedroom because we were afraid our bear would just mess with the buttons, eventually pulling them off and causing a choking hazard???  (Paranoid mom I know..but better safe than sorry).  We might add that element later on as she gets older because I definitely think it would look cuter with a tufted look.  

For at least a week we talked constantly about her "Big Girl Bed" and how exciting it was that daddy made this for her.  

When it finally came time to ACTUALLY put it in her room, she was thrilled!

There are a couple of items on the list that STILL need to be done: 

We need to find a way to finish those arm edges...she needs a new bold print/fun comforter (can't seem to find one I'm completely in love with yet) and I'd like to get her some big pillows to line the back..  BUT, so far, SUCCESS!