From bed to couch

I have six year old twins and they have always slept together in the same room but when they were 5 we decided it was time to split them up. They each got a room for all their toys and their bed was pulled out to be a "big" bed.  The boy stayed in their old room. He got some new curtains and some more storage. Our daughter moved in the next room - purple walls, new closet and tons of storage.

The first month went so well. Our daughter loved her new room all girly with all her things in their proper place. But then she began to wake up each night and sleep in our room. In the beginning she was in our bed. After a short while she moved on a mattress next to me.

Then one weekend the kids decided to have a sleepover with each other. Our son slept on a mattress on the floor next to our daughter and for the first time in months she didn't wake up. Thinking it might be just a one night thing we tried again and again. She missed her brother! So he moved in again - this time in her room - we bought one new bed and fitted it to hers so they now have bunk beds. But that left his old bed with his old mattress in kiddy size. At some point I had invested in a bunch of pillows for a couch, they at that point served a new purpose; play pillows. But they always ended up on the floor never to picked up.

I bought some heavy blue fabric and sat down at the sewing machine and converted the old bed into a nice reading couch instead:

I simply measured the mattress and made a cover for it. For the pillows I measured what size I wanted the covers and made them quite smaller than the actual pillow - that way the cushion became quite firm and feels more like a couch cushion. I closed the pillows with Velcro. It took me five hours but I am quite pleased with the result.

He uses it when he wants some quiet time or just to relax in his room. But I think he will use it even more when he gets older. It is also a great place to store the old mattress that we use when the kids have sleepovers.