DIY King Platform Bed With Storage | How To Build
- Furniture DIY Projects
- April Wilkerson
- Updated: March 4, 2023
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Thinking about building your own king platform bed with storage? Check out this project where I show you how I built my own with lots of storage!
I’ve been wanting to build a platform bed with storage for a while, so that’s what I decided to tackle this week. In my design I made it not only modular so it’s easy to assembly and take a part when I want to move the platform bed frame, but it also has lots of storage.
Four drawers along the front, and six open shelves along the sides. Then on the inside are two drawers for long term storage items such as winter clothes during the summer or visa versa. Let me show you the process on how I built it.
I designed the bed so that a King could be built from five sheets of plywood. I used my Armor workbench to move the first sheet onto my workbench then got started with breaking it down with my Triton tracksaw. I’ll go ahead and warn you now that it’s a lot of pieces but I have a set of Platform Bed with Storage DIY Plans with a full cut-list which drastically speeds up the process.
After breaking down my first sheet, I decided to paint my remaining sheets before cutting the rest. This also sped up the process since it’s quicker to paint an entire sheet than lots and lots of small parts.
After reducing the size with my track saw, I used my table saw and Rockler crosscut sled to break them down even further….really utilizing the stop block built into the sled to make the many repeatable cuts.
Before getting to assembly, let me show you my game plan so you understand the direction I’m going. The bed is built in three main sections. The two sides are identical but mirrored with open shelving. Then the front spans across to connect those two and has drawers. I’m starting with building the two sides sections, which is just a big ole box with 90 degree connections.
I used a few of the Rockler corner clamps to align my parts. This is a jig that has a square in the center and easily clamps two boards together at a perfect 90 so that once you align them flush, you don’t have to worry about them moving as you’re driving in screws.
I first attached the two end pieces then moved the jig down to repeat on the center dividers. You can see I’m using a scrap as a spacer. I use a quick bandy clamp to hold it down, then set my next board in the corner clamp, then just have to butt the top up against my spacer to set it in place.
Once I have them clamped in place, I flipped the unit down to make driving in the screws easier.
With those in, I could flip the unit over and attach the top. BTW: Even though wood glue isn’t as strong when applied to a painted surface, I still applied glue to every joint before backing up the connection with screws. After attaching the top, I flipped the unit over once again then repeated to attach the back. Utilizing a Rockler bar clamp to bring in any edges that weren’t perfectly flush.
One down! Lets get it out of the way and repeat to build a second. I intentionally set the height of my Armor workbench so I can slide items on and off my main workbench easily.
Now onto making the front sections.
Building this box is just as simple, the only difference is the dividers are spaced differently. Oh, also there isn’t a solid back. In order to not remove the mattress any time I want to get into the long term storage drawers in the center, I designed it so that I can remove the two center drawers completed, then pull the storage drawers through the same openings.
With that, everything is covered on this box except the two openings.
Ok, lets put it on the ground and see how it looks. The front lines up to one of the side sections, then the second side can be easily lined up after that.
Looks good to me! Lets build some drawers next.
These are just smaller boxes. After cutting up my parts, I once again used the corner clamp it jigs to help assembly along. On my personal bed, I liked the idea of opening shelving on the side but if you wanted more drawer storage instead, this same process could be used to make them all drawers.
To attach the face of the drawer, I used a few spacers to create the needed offsets, then applied glue and screws. Since these screws are on the show face of the drawer, I will later fill them with wood putty and paint over it when I do the touch up paint to the rest of the bed.
So that’s one drawer…..and two drawers. Next was the same process but on a slightly smaller scale to create drawer three and then drawer four.
Now I’m actually going to be putting those on sliders but I ordered them late and was still waiting on them, so I paused that step and moved onto building out the center section.
The first thing I did here was create a railing all the way around the inside of the three sections. This lip will later hold the pieces to cover up the center section and hold up the mattress.
I applied glue then set the rail into place with screws. You can see I’m again using a spacer to line it up correctly. You want to set the depth of this rail so that the final board will be flush all the way across in the end.
After repeating that on the other two sections, I grabbed the pieces from my cutlist to start building a center support for the mattress. This member is made up of a top and bottom with some 2x4s in between.
If it were important to get the spacing correct, I would have used a spacer to align them but since it won’t be seen, I just eye balled the placement then used glue and screws to attach everything together. Easy enough….now this can be placed here….perfect.
When looking at the bed at this point, on the ground, I decided to add some feet to the bottom of each section to raise it all up just slightly. I like the idea of it looking like it’s floating, so I ripped some boards down at the table saw then glued two strips together. Using a brad nailer here to hold things together while the glue set up.
Then I could flip the three compartments on their top and attach these rails to the bottom to create a stand off. I set these back just slightly so they won’t be seen from the sides or face.
I must apologize here, I had a camera malfunction it looks like (I forgot to hit the record button) and don’t have the footage of assembling the inside drawers meant for long term storage. However! Building the drawer is the same as the other drawers.
The intention here is to utilize some of the wasted space in this center section. To access the drawers, I just have to remove the two center drawers then pull them out through the same openings. It’s worth noting that I only made these half as deep as the depth. If you wanted more space, you could make them twice as long ooor you could even make two for each side.
Once I placed my center drawers on casters, I next set the two final plywood sheets in place to create the rest of the platform. While I could have left it as is, I didn’t like how I had to move to the back of the bed to slide them off so I decided to quickly cut in some held holds. Just a place big enough for my fingers to slip in and push the top back, should I need to.
I used a random radius in my shop to trace roughly around center of this piece then cut it out using my Triton jig saw.
To clean up this edge, I used a new tool to my shop which is the Triton portable oscillating spindle sander. It was perfect in this application as this part was too large to take to the table.
However, it is worth noting that Rockler makes a table for mounting this sander. So should you have a small part that is easier to take to a table, such as the drawer faces with the same curved cut in them, then this is available.
Ok and that’s almost the bed done! The last thing I needed to do was mount my drawers on the slides to make the front section functional. To make this go quick and easy, I use a Drawer Slide jig from Rockler. You can set the slider into place then hold onto it by sliding the lock down to wedge it in. Now you can position the jig on the side board.
With the front built in stops, it will align the drawer slides at the same distance on all the cubbies. It’s worth mentioning that if you wanted to reference off the top of a cabinet instead of the bottom like I’m doing, there is a built in positioning rod that’s adjustable so again, all the slides come out at the same position.
Then the way I install drawers is I keep the entire slide together when attaching it to the cubby. Then to not have to figure out where the second part of the slide goes to be perfectly aligned, I place a small spacer on the bottom to set the drawer on top of.
Then still keeping the two parts together, I pull out the second part and attach it to the drawer. There we go. Easy peasy.
Ok, and that’s a wrap with the build portion of the bed. Now all the sections can easily be moved inside and put together. After arranging the two side sections with the front, they could be screwed together from the inside of the small drawers. Then the rest of the parts could be added.
I plan to store off-season clothes in the long term storage drawers in the center, folded clothes or linens in the front drawers, then the sides I’ll use for shoes or baskets of items.
All in all this build has a lot of pieces but it’s very easy to put together, so if you’re needing a bed then check out the plans with a cutlist and material list here in these DIY Platform Bed with Storage build Plans. I have this design in Queen and King sizes.
I hope you enjoyed it!
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