Friday, June 26, 2009

Cheap Bunk Beds

If you've come here looking for cheap bunk beds then I'm afraid you might be disappointed, but please don't rush off. I do have a serious reason for starting this blog and it is to try and persuade you that buying a dirt cheap bed might not be the best way forward. I am a mother of three and can safely say I have had a fair bit of experience with, not only bunk beds but, a whole host of childrens furniture, toys, clothes and more and if I have just one piece of useful advice to pass on it is the following. Don't skimp on quality!

Of course you don't have to lavish thousands of dollars on the things that your kids use on a day by day basis, in fact I would certainly avoid doing that unless you want your child to grow up with very expensive tastes and an attitude that they have a God given right to these expensive products. Spending a fortune on some designer clothes for your kiddies is, I think, a little bit sick when you consider how quickly they are going to grow out of them and how many people there are in the world going hungry, but I digress.

What I'm really talking about is actually providing your children with good quality products that maybe in the mid price range but will actually save you time and money in the long run. When you pay a little bit extra for a bed, for example, you are getting something with a longer lifespan because of the quality of the product. And when it come to kids you want as much quality as possible or they will wreck that new purchase quicker than you can say "overdraft"!

I think this is particularly true of bunkbeds because children don't just see them as a place to sleep they also see them as their own personal playground, and like any climbing frame in a playground you want it to be safe don't you. So please forgive me if I'm preaching, but I would urge you not to skimp too much when buying a bunk bed for your kids. Consider the wear and tear, consider your children's safety and consider the long term effect on your bank account if you buy something cheap and end up with a broken bed in a couple of months.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Cheap Bunk Bed Frames

If you're looking for cheap bunk bed frames then I suggest you go over to the IKEA website and start your search there. IKEA is renown for its low price furniture that is made to a pretty high quality. I say "pretty high" because in this life you get what you pay for and there's no way any manufacturer can produce a really high quality product and sell it at a really cheap price, but IKEA do it better than most.

Having said that I still wouldn't recommend skimping on the cost of your bunk bed frame. After all the safety of your children is the issue here. A bunk bed is a tall and wide item of furniture with lots of different joints all of which need to be able to take a lot of weight. You don't want to put much strain on those joints if the bed frame you have chosen is weak and lacking in strength. That's when you're going to run into problems and end up trying to fix your bunk bed or even have to buy a new one. Is it really worth the money you will save initially?

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cheap Futon Bunk Bed

Here would be my warning about buying a cheap futon bunk bed. I once purchase a futon bed that converted into a sofa. I'm presuming that this is what you might be looking for when buying a futon bunk bed, a flat futon bed on top and a futon bed below that folds up into a sofa? Well it looked great in the pictures and indeed pretty damn good when I got it home, but after a few weeks, when the futon mattress had softened up a bit, things started to go wrong.

Basically once the bed was converted into a sofa the back of the futon, where you would rest your back, started to slide and shift downwards every time I got up or sat down. I was constantly having to pull the futon back up so that the back rest was vertical. This was a real pain as I didn't like the look of the sofa when the futon had slipped down and I didn't much enjoy the effort of pulling it back up all the time. Anyone who has had a futon will know that they're a bit of a dead weight. So be careful what you purchase, make sure the cheap price doesn't mean lousy quality.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Cheap Metal Bunk Bed

Ok, if you're looking to save a bit of money on your purchase then I think a good bet would be a cheap metal bunk bed. On the whole metal products are easier and cheaper to produce than wooden ones, so you may well get a better made product for your money going with metal. And as metal is a tougher material all round than wood you've got a better chance of keeping a metal bunk bed in good working order. It isn't going to suffer the same wear and tear as a wooden bed.

Furthermore it's much easier to have rock solid joints with a metal frame than with wood. Once the joints of a metal framed bed have been well and truly tightened up there's not much in the world, apart from the spanner you assembled it with, that will shift them again. The constant small pressures getting in and out of a wood bed, on the other hand, will over time create a degradation of the joints which will certainly make the bed feel flimsy and unstable. And of course eventually the joint will break.

Cheap Bunk Bed Mattresses

If you're like me you will often forget when choosing a bed that you have to also factor in the price of the mattress. And if, also like me, you have forgotten to do so then you will be shocked once you discover that the price of a good quality mattress can be almost as much as the bed itself! To compound the problem if you are buying a bunk bed you have to factor in the cost of two mattresses. It's no wonder then that so many people search for cheap bunk bed mattresses.

Having said that when choosing a cheap mattress please don't go for the cheapest products. Remember we all spend a third of our lives in bed and the healthy up keep of our bodies are at stake. A mattress can make or break the quality of a good nights sleep as you will know yourself if you've ever had the misfortune to stay in some run down hotel. No, think about your childrens well being and spend enough money to get a half decent bunk bed mattress. And lets face it, if they get a good nights sleep so will you!