A lot of pulling mortices together later, and I end up with something that looks like a bunk bed:


Normally, I like to fill and paint at this point. However, I needed to get all these parts through the bedroom door, so I had to keep it as a knock-down set-up, which precluded my ability to glue the rail supports if I ever wanted to take it out of my son's bedroom without an axe. So I pulled the whole thing back apart. I repurposed a target stand, some dollies, and some scrap to build a parts rack.


Prime twice, then sand. 2x4s are cheap, but they are also soft and kind of crappy for furniture purposes. I ended up sanding pretty aggressively (80 grit, 120), followed by two coats of primer and a lot of filler, followed again by an aggresive sanding at 180 grit. I could have saved a lot of time instead of money had I chosen a better grade of material. However, this is a 4-8 year bunk bed for an 8 year old, and not a Shaker cabinet, so pine it was.


Yay! Two coats of Rustoleum enamel in gloss black.


Final assembly was... rough. I put the wrong side of the rail on, and didn't realize until half way through, when I had to pull it back apart. Also, some touch-up paint is going to be necessary at the rails. But it's in there. The general guidance was 24" of clearance from the sleeping surface for the top bunk. There is 32 inches to the floor of the bunk, but that still doesn't leave a lot of clearance over the top rail:


I told my son I wanted to take 6" off the legs, but he is demanding that I keep it high. That may change by the time he turns 10, but I will worry about that in another two years.


Mattress gets here on Wednesday, but son has already moved in.
As a final note, I probably should have just given my wife $250 and sent her into Ikea.
But my son seems happy, so I am happy.