After packing our one room double full of clothes, books and a mini-fridge, my roommate and I quickly realized that one of us would need to loft her bed to create enough space to host friends. All that remained to be decided was who would dare to raise her bed five feet into the air.
Neither of us wanted to sacrifice the ease of flopping into bed after a long day for the cumbersome task of climbing up a wooden frame. We shared the fear of falling out of the bed and the concern of whether a lofted bed would be able to support … certain activities … as well as its lower-to-the-ground and presumably more sturdy counterparts.
It became a bitter battle. Who would forfeit comfort and ease for the greater good of our room environment? In the end, I decided to take one for the team and loft my bed.
And let me tell you, it’s really not that bad. From my experience, lofting your bed can be amazing, if you follow a few simple tips.
- Systemize climbing up and down it, especially if you opted not to use a ladder, like me.
If you have a consistent method for climbing in and out of your bed, it makes the process more automatic and therefore less of a hassle. Less thinking = less work. Systemizing the climb also makes you less likely to fall in moments where you may be thinking less clearly (if you’re brain dead after a long night of studying or a party, perhaps). So decide ahead of time if you want to only use the second and fourth rungs or step on each rung to climb up.
- Be prepared to adjust your pajamas.I’ve noticed that it is considerably warmer in my lofted bed than it was on the ground. The part of me that remembers sixth grade science wants to credit this to hot air rising, but I’m not entirely certain of the cause. Since I refuse to give up the feeling of snuggling under a blanket, I started wearing shorts to sleep instead of pants. While I can’t guarantee that everybody will feel warmer in a lofted bed, be aware that changing where you sleep may also affect how — and in what — you sleep.
- Use it as motivation to be productive.
Gone are the days of lying in bed between classes. It’s a war between being too lazy to climb up and being too lazy to do work, but usually I opt to do the work.
- Put your bed near an outlet or invest in an extension cord.If you want to watch Netflix in bed, it’s a real bummer when your laptop is about to die, and you can’t charge it from your bed. Watching Netflix on the floor or at your desk just isn’t as comfortable, so make sure you can charge your devices from your bed.
If you use your phone as an alarm, you want to make sure it’s convenient to reach from your bed and able to charge while you sleep. Lofting may make it more difficult to reach your alarm, so make a plan before lofting. I just tuck mine under my mattress since there are no shelves nearby.
- Find somewhere else to put your clean laundry.I’m not sure if everybody does this, but after I wash my clothes I always dump them on my bed until I have the energy to sort them. Now that my bed is lofted, this is no longer convenient. For a while, I was leaving clothes on top of my shelves and on my desk. It was a mess, so I suggest proactively choosing somewhere else to leave your laundry.
Contact Phoebe Quinton at pquinton ‘at’ stanford.edu.