what a great idea..! and i love all that color against the white – the pillows and the paper pompoms and lanterns! beautiful!

-maria

Fabulous! Great job!

That’s excellent and having it on wheels is a great idea too!

That lamp-collection in the ceiling is gorgeous! It’s like having a birthday every day!

It’s lovely, but I can’t help but think about when the little girl is mobile… the rough edges and wheels? Danger Will Robinson!

this is AWESOME! i love it!!

The paper lantern idea is so smart! I think these come from the Martha Stewart line at Michael’s. I’ve always admired them at the store but thought they’d only be good for party.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! Rustic & refined and just downright delicious! Nicely done! (And, Sheila… right there with ya’ on the paper lanterns too!)

WOW. LOVE the door…I’d use that as a headboard for my own bed. Amazing idea! And of course everything else is just fabulous…the colors, patterns, ceiling fixture, artwork. Swoon!

I fell in love with a pallet bed Sandbox Studio photographed a while back and this confirms my suspicions: I need to make one! So functionally beautiful, yet so inexpensive. Come to think of it, I love everything about this whole room!

i spy a new chair coming soon to my apt!
very clever idea.

Oh my! Gorgeous! I love the light fixture!

this is lovely!

(quick note though – if trying to replicate this, make sure you use untreated wood pallets. pallets used for international and some domestic commercial shipping are often foll of preservatives/pesticides/stuff that’s good for shipping but probably not good for humans to spend a significant time sleeping on)

seeing more and more pallet furniture around… and I love it! what a great way to get great style for little money. I also love the combination of textiles on this bed…

WOW, what an awesome idea and transformation!

what about when you are “messing around” on it and the bed starts rolling around a lot? Did you use locking roller wheels? What is the weight capacity? Has it been tested for top speed? What incline? Oh, yeah, swoon.!

Fabulous idea. I already thought about that. In fact i love the unfinished wood of the palettes.

oh my gosh I love that….I want to make a boy-ish one for my son! Thank you! xo

Thanks for the great comments. Just wanted to note that the wood was untreated and we sanded it super smooth. there are no rough edges or parts that splinter…it did take a lot of sanding to get it smooth enough for a child’s room, but was worth it.

Absolutely fabulous! I adore everything about the entire room.

Holy moly, that is amazing!

holy crap, how cool is that! seriously, what an original idea.

Could you tell us a little about the fabric used for all the pillows? I think I recognize one as Amy Butler, but which pattern? Thanks!

I love the paper lantern arrangement! Are these DIY or did you purchase them? I would love to do something similar in my home.

This is great!! Probably my favorite before & after ever. I want to do this now!

All the lanterns are from the Martha Stewart collection at Walmart. Some are intended for weddings, some are for parties. The circle garland is from the same collection.

The pillow fabric is Amy Butler, one is “grey floating buds” from the Midwest Modern 2 collection, the other is “apricot wall flower” from the lotus collection. The dot fabric is also Amy Butler “tangerine full moon”

Amazing! It just shows you don’t have to spend a million bucks to get a chic, unique space. Love it!

grace: got any info on those amazing hanging flowers? i want to look up and see that bunch of beauty hanging over me all the time!

this is the most beautiful after picture ever! just lovely.

I really LOVE this blog, but I just noticed something that makes me really sad and means I’ll probably will stop reading it loyally like I used to, and like I used to enjoy so much…

Now just a tiny bit of the posts is showing up on the RSS feed.

I don’t know if this was done on purpose or was some kind of accident, but I BEG YOU to restore the full posts on the RSS feed.

That will make me and I’m sure many other readers very very happy.

And please keep the amazing job you’re doing with this blog, it’s certainly an inspiration for me and for many friends I have introduced it to.

Lenara

That is such a great idea. What a lovely room!! Can you tell us where the white bed spread is from?

What a fantastic idea! The whole room ties together nicely!

This has been THE most amazing collection of before and afters ever! EVER!!!

ummm, just beautiful!

Great look! I am considering doing something similar for a bed in my 5 year old son’s room.
I’m hoping that the door behind the bed was either tested for lead paint or has a clear acrylic coat over it. While I love reusing old doors and furniture, now that I have a child I’m thinking more about the potential lead hazards.

This is just beautiful! And the bed’s on casters! Love it.

The whole look is totally stunning- clearly there is some major talent here :)

There was a neat idea like this in this months issue of ready made.. kind of sailboat/4th of july theme..

http://www.readymade.com/magazine/

I like this different take!! Especially the poms..

Love this combo! The raw feel of the door headboard and crate base, the lovely bed fabric, the personal collage of photos, and the gorgeous colors of the refined pompom/lantern grouping–this is delightful!

Absolutely amazing! I am SO doing this in my house!!

Grace: Displaying an image from a different site (i.e. using their bandwidth, or leeching) is called hotlinking. There’s a simple way to prevent this. Take a look at http://www.davidairey.com/stop-image-theft-hotlinking-htaccess/(first link when I googled).

Love the site, would hate to see it go down!

Okay this blog makes me droooool

Love it! Talk about a Recessionista project :)

I’m perfectly happy to be forced to visit the site! It’s literally 5 seconds out of my time, and the site design is so pretty, so it’s worth it just to get a break from staring at the boring reader design!

I love d*s and although I prefer to see everything in my RSS feed, I understand the problem. Thanks for being honest with your readers. Is there some way we can help? I didn’t see a lot of ads on the site, which is nice but I’d be happy to make a donation or purchase something from a link here if that will get you a kickback. Let us know!

If only such creativity was contagious! I’ve seen quite a few DIY projects with pallets lately. I need to get one…

hot damn ashley!

This is so lovely. I love the white walls with the great color. And what a wonderful idea for the bed.

This is a lovely photo, the idea is great and how everything has been put together very nice. By the way I visit the site every day I didn’t even know what RSS feed was I am sure a lot of people do the same so keep up the good work.

The entire room is just gorgeous :)

que buen uso le dieron a esos guacales :D

Thanks for being forthright about it, Grace. Things always seem to get complicated :)

From a simple raw crate to a lovely daybed. Absolutely great!

Amazing! I just love this.

This room is simply adorable! I’ve been trying to figure out what the ruffle fitted sheet is…anybody know? It adds a super-cute girly touch :)

By the way…after reading the comments, I just shouted out to my husband “what the heck is an RSS feed???” After a 20 minute explanation, I think I’m starting to understand! Good luck with all the logistics…I LOVE your site!

I love every single thing in the after shot – the pallets on wheels, the gorgeous fabrics, all of the interesting items and frames on the wall, and those pompoms and lanterns! I want this room!

Great idea to use old pallet, but what really drags my attention is installation on the ceiling. It looks amazing and is easy enough to make, I guess.

BTW it would be great to use modular origami for this kind of ‘lamp’.

Thank you for sharing!

I LOVE this idea! You could even slide wire trays or baskets in the openings in the front.

Hello, I signed up to the RSS feed a while ago but much prefer reading via the actual site (so pretty), would it help if i unsubscribed? I tend to go straight to the website during my lunch break at work! Didn’t realise it cost so much.
p.s love the lanterns.

Oh that is gorgeous, gives me ideas for updating my own room.

grace

just wanted to share that i never view your site in an rss feed. it’d be a shame to miss out on what a lovely site you’ve created!

sorry to hear of the crazy expenses that have arisen due to image hosting. you’re so resourceful, i don’t doubt you’ll find a solution soon!!

also wanted to let you know how much i appreciate your efforts not to bombard readers with ads – which i’m sure can be quite a challenge. you manage to maintain the ad space necessary to the site’s survival without the garish display so prominent on some other design blogs. sadly i’ve stopped reading some of them because of this.

your dedication to providing thoughtful, original content is so appreciated – ashley’s daybed included! what a great before and after!

shanna

this is so cool! I’ve been wanting to do a pallet coffee table for a while now. This may have just given me the push I need to finally get started on it!

Ashley I LOVE this pallet bed and I want to try it out in my guest room, but I cant tell in the pictures if/how you connected the two pallets together. I want to try and join four pallets for my spare queen mattress…any details on the actual how-to?

Apartment Therapy puts ads in their RSS feeds and I don’t mind one bit. They have an ENORMOUS RSS readership and image-heavy posts, so their hosting costs must be big. I like how they do house tours and round ups with one big picture to lure you in and then clickable thumbnails that take you to the site.

Are you kidding me? This is awesome!

Now, this is just truly amazing….. Love it…..

WOWSER!!! This bed is great on so many levels. I love the fact that is so good looking and demonstrates how easy it is to recycle something that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
Many Thanks.

What a graet idea! I love it!

does it fit a standard twin mattress? or do you have to get one custom made? i LOVE the idea…want to do it…but i’m not sure how cost-effective it would be if you had to have a custom mattress…

This is gorgeous. So inspirational to see something so useful and attractive made from such humble materials.

I too don’t bother with RSS feeds.

I only see 2 ads on the home page right now. One is for a graphic/web designer (which I’ve clicked on, btw) and the other is some kind of weird ugly thing that has a layout that bleeds out some of the font beyond the border of the ad. (This looks the same whether I view on Firefox or Safari.) It’s hard to tell if the ad is editorial or not. It has D*S in the box. (Copy says “Design Sponge Take a Seat”)

I’m one of the few people who would like to see MORE ads on D*S. As long as they’re ads for cool stuff/services that are hand chosen by you Grace, why would any of us mind?

I’m also surprised that there are no ads whenever I click deep into D*S. I keep expecting that there will be ads that relate to the content I’m looking at. But there aren’t.

Advertising is only intrusive when it’s for stuff I’m not interested in. (Like the stupid teeth whitening ads that seem to follow me everywhere on political sites.)

There are certainly ways to do ads without interrupting the look of the editorial content.

I’m baffled as to why I don’t encounter more ads on D*S.

Sorry to hear about the difficulties you’re having pulling in the money you need. I love the site and am grateful that you’re so considerate towards your readers.

I just wanted to share this link to a system for navigating the web that doesn’t use RSS feeds:
http://www.slate.com/id/2217353/

I browse similarly, using new windows instead of tabs and using Expose on my Mac to toggle between them, and I love it. Seeing how sites–especially sites focused on design!–lay out their content is an integral part of the web-surfing experience for me. Here’s hoping this method may work for some current RSS readers.

Happy 4th, all!

I too would like to know about the ruffly bed cover (if that’s what it is), and any tips on joining pallets. :)

I agree, you should have more ads in the site, that will not stop me to comeback everyday!! specially if they are related to the content and I am sure they will be displayed tastefully. I hope u find a way to keep the whole thing running, i know how difficult it is, here in London things are not easy either.

charm + smarts=style…thanks keep up the greatness

Grace — If there is any entity whose ads I would consider important and valuable enough to click & explore, it would be any posted on Designsponge. Really. You have access & knowledge of cool sources that many of us would not.

wow, this is really creative, and i love the idea of the casters + the little cubbies are perfect.

I posted more info and instructions on the bed on my blog. The pallets I found are smaller, untreated, oak and really hardy. My bed is basically two smaller sized pallets, heavily sanded then attached using hinges on the top and bottom. Rolling casters are on all 4 corners and the center. I wanted a small bed, so I custom made the ‘mattress’ using foam and padding (mine is not intended for an adult to sleep on every night, but is plenty comfortable for a small adult to take naps on). You can use larger pallets for a twin size bed…you might even have to cut the pallets down some for a twin bed.

The ruffly cover on the bed is a blanket from IKEA. The quilt was made by my aunt.

The lanterns are connected to a dowel rod frame I made, then attached using two eye hooks to the ceiling. I used fishing line and twine to attach the lanterns to the dowel frame.

Thanks for all the great comments!

What a great idea-we were looking for some inexpensive ideas for our guestroom and I have just found it
Thanks

I am surely not trying to be a downer to this before and after, but the first thought that comes to mind is formaldehyde. Also, I’ve read that palletes can harbor bacteria like salmonella and e coli. I would take care when choosing a pallete.

Ashely,

Does this fit a standard twin size mattress? I’ve been looking at expensive daybed from west elm but now that I’ve seen this, I am going to make it asap!

hey grace! i’m all for ads in the RSS feeds if it means full posts are displayed! i love visiting the site, but i like to see all the images without clicking through each jump, so i tend to do a lot of my visiting through the RSS. i can’t believe how expensive that is for you, though, and hope you can figure something out asap to avoid those crazy costs. happy 4th!

I love the idea, but I wonder why she didnt add wood to bottom open slots, so then you could use the area between the bed as storage..

Have you taken a look at http://www.problogger.net? Darren Rowse is one of the top experts in solving problems like yours (he has a book too). You might want to send him an email and get his advice.

I love your site, btw!

I’m not sure if someone has already mentioned it, but have you thought about doing small giveaways on your site? Several other blogs that I frequent do that, and there’s always 10x more hits on contest days. It might bring more people to your actual site (which I love, btw. I’ve gotten so many ideas – that park bench made of reclaimed chairs is still stuck in my head.)

I’m glad to hear you’ve got some new approaches lined up starting tomorrow. I’d hate to have to get all Suze Orman on you. ;) Best of luck, and please don’t think twice about doing what you have to do to stay afloat. I just found this site – I’d hate to see it go so quickly!

i’m loving this before & after! i think i’m gonna do a little research and see if it would be possible to follow the same formula for a full/queen size bed . . . hmmm. great work here; very inspiring!

wonderul ideal, you’re a genious!

I am probably one of the few that like the ads you choose. They are actually why I started following your blog and I will admit I was a little disappointed when I noticed you substantially reduced the number of ads you host. I assumed it was because of all the flash they required. Half the reason I subscribe to certain magazines is for the beautiful or witty ads. As long as they are relevant, I am not offended.
Bring ‘em on back!

I personally like giveaways, but of stuff you couldnt get anywhere else…what you do is get an advertiser to give you a couple stuff for free, then while your holding the couple day giveaway, people will be interested in not only what is being given away but also where you got it, so they will want to go and buy stuff from the site that gave it you. I always go to the website of the advertisers who supply the item being given away, and even if I dont win, I will buy the item anyway.

You can always have a classy giveaway…do it the way Notcot does it, just ask people to leave a comment about something that relates to the item being give away, and why they would love/need the item. either best comment wins, or pick a winner by closing your eyes and pulling the page up and down really fast then stop on the one your finger touches first lol. just make it fun, and not serious, we dont expect you to give away college scholarships and be forced to choose between the hundreds of comments of destitute students.

I love the bird print with the letter b. I feel like I’ve seen it someplace on etsy before, but I have literally hundreds of shops favorited. Does anyone know where I can find it?

Absolutely lovely room, by the way!

I absolutely adore this photo. The colors of the “chandelier” are amazing — I’m thinking I need to recreate this one!

What a great idea! I love the photo, the room the entire concept. Well done!

OMG! This is amazing! This has given me a great idea my headboard. How did you hold the 2 wooden pallets together in the middle. I am new to this and would love to know how you contructed this. Absolutely amazing!

im new to the site and absolutely love it. just moved into a new 2 BR apartment that is nearly empty at the moment and need these design tips (especially the money-saving ones!) desperately.

i want to recreate this look in my second bedroom, but i am having trouble finding wood pallets. anyone have any ideas? im in san francisco, in case anyone knows of anywhere specifically in the bay area where i can find them.

thanks again and keep up the excellent work grace. ever since i found the site, im here every day for your updates…

Just found your site (where have I been?) and will be a loyal reader from now on!

I love this daybed, but want to remind folks that if they’re using older painted pieces (like the door) in homes with children to have them tested for lead paint. It is very dangerous and can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, especially in children.

I really LOVE this blog.
My blog is “100%Carton” from Frenchie…
Bye

Grace — Late to the conversation, but please do what you have to do to keep the site profitable. And keep it “image heavy”–that’s why we love d*s. Thank you for not trading advertorial space for promo giveaway items (tho I do like to win stuff). Your ethics are refreshing. As a former dotcom manager, I know the challenges in generating online revenue. Number one: you deserve to be paid tremendously for this blog. I am sad to hear that you are barely meeting your hosting fees. d*s is fantastic, and you deserve so much more. Damn the RSS’ers; give us ads. Sell audience.

This is beyond Cool !
LOVE this idea – & the total room looks amazing

The only thing I would do differenly would be to Paint & decorate the the Pallets – I’m just not feeling the natural look of the Pallets

just.the best!!!!!l love thatt!!!!!
that so informal sofa!!!!!

Can you tell me how you connected the pallets, basically how it was constructed? What size mattress did you use for 2 pallets? That is AMAZING!! I love it! Thanks so much!

anyone know where to find pallets like these? i have had my husband on the prowl but he says he has never found pallets like that, only those big, wide, flat pallets made from very thin, cheap wood… were the pallets made for this project handmade perhaps?

this is possibly my favorite before and after. and the use of recycled, non-precious materials makes it pretty much perfect. brava!

It is perfect!

This is so inventive! What a great idea. One of our favorite before/afters by far!!! Keep up the great work!

This room has become the inspiration for my little girls’ rooms. I actually already had the tissue balls…but am wondering where you found the paper lanterns??? I don’t see them at Wal Mart. Did you get those there too? Thank you! This room is AMAZING!

I built my bed on Saturday! I love it! It was surprisingly really easy and affordable!