{"id":5258,"date":"2019-10-28T19:54:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T19:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/?p=5258"},"modified":"2019-11-04T13:33:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T13:33:15","slug":"skeleton-bunkbeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/skeleton-bunkbeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeleton bunkbeds!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I made these skeleton bunkbeds to transform my apartment&#8217;s bathroom into a summer camp dormitory for my 1970s-summer-camp-slasher-movie-themed Halloween party. They were easy! <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-05.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-05.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop - done!\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The bunkbeds consist of a few main parts: the beds themselves, the ladder, and the vertical supports holding up the top bunk. I made all of these out of just foam board, tape, and hot glue, using my usual techniques <!--more--> for <a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/sculpture-technique-making-box-shapes-out-of-foam-board\/\">making box shapes out of foam board<\/a>.<\/p>\n <div class=\"ad-300x250 ad-float-right\">\r\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- MMS 300x250 -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5009313124668288\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3616150394\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>I usually use heavy duty shipping tape to create really strong connections between pieces of foam board, but I wanted to avoid that for this project wherever I could. For most of my projects, I use tons of tape everywhere, but then I cover everything over with paper mach\u00e9 to conceal the shiny texture of the tape and give me a nice paint-able surface. I didn&#8217;t plan on using any paper mach\u00e9 on this project, so I did whatever I could to hide the tape. I wanted to avoid having visible tape anywhere when these things were done. <\/p>\n<p>I also wanted to strategize ahead of time for only painting the surfaces of these pieces that will be visible to people, in order to save a lot of money on paint. So I marked a lot of these pieces along the way to remind me which surfaces would be facing the walls. <\/p>\n<p>So for this project I tried using hot glue in place of shipping tape for a lot of the connections &mdash; basically I planned out all of this so I could use tape in the places that wouldn&#8217;t be visible to the viewer, and hot glue in the places that would. <\/p>\n<p>In using the hot glue everywhere, I tried to hide it as much as possible between the pieces of foam board, where the edges touched. This worked out fine! In the end I was able to make all these big shapes and for the most part you could only see the foam board surfaces everywhere. Perfect for painting. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, back to making this stuff. Of course I first measured all the dimensions of my bath tub, where this decoration would live. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-01.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-01.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop - cutting out foam board shapes\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the biggest panels of the bed, I had to use multiple pieces of foam board. For these pieces I did use some shipping tape on the interior surfaces (like, inside the actual box shape of the beds) to create a really strong connection between the pieces. Normally I&#8217;d put tape on both sides, but I skipped that for these pieces &mdash; again, aiming to have as little visible tape as possible on these things. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-02.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-02.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop - assembling foam board\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I built some triangular structures to use as interior supports make this box shape nice and sturdy; see my article on <a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/sculpture-technique-making-box-shapes-out-of-foam-board\/\">making box shapes out of foam board<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>I laid the top panel in place and secured it along one side (the side that will be against the bathroom wall) with tape. From there, I started connecting the &#8220;walls&#8221; of these boxes on either side with my hot glue gun. I only put walls on the two long edges of each bed; the narrow edges won&#8217;t be visible so there&#8217;s no need to waste any foam board there. <\/p>\n<p>When I was done, the bed shape felt pretty sturdy &mdash; strong enough for a plastic skeleton, anyway! Then of course I repeated all these steps to make the second bunk. <\/p>\n<p>I made the vertical supports for the top bunk more or less the same way I did the beds: I cut out all the long panels, then put some triangular supports inside, and connected all the pieces &mdash; again, using shipping tape on the sides that will face the walls, and hot-glue on the sides that will be visible to people. <\/p>\n<p>I made the ladder out of strips of foam board; I didn&#8217;t bother to go too 3-D on this part. I just hot-glued all these flat panels in place, and that was good enough for this thing. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-03.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-03.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop - spray painting\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I decided to paint all these pieces <em>before<\/em> connecting them; not my usual process. I bought the cheapest tan spray paint I could find and used a couple cans to cover all these pieces. Like I mentioned above, I saved a lot of paint by strategically avoiding all the surfaces that will be facing the walls, as well as the bottom surface that&#8217;s facing the tub. So only about two-thirds of this whole decoration needed paint. When you&#8217;re making as much Halloween crap as I do every year, every little bit counts! <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-04.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-04.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop - ladder and supports\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Time to assemble the bunk beds. First, I laid the lower bunk in place over top of my bath tub; luckily it fit just as I intended. Then, I set the top bunk on top of it. I grabbed one of the vertical supports, lifted the top bunk, and set the support in place, then I quickly grabbed another support and stuck that in the opposite corner. The pieces stayed in place more or less as I grabbed two more supports and set them in the other corners. I grabbed my heavy duty hot glue gun and glued all the supports in place. Last, I hot-glued the ladder in place.<\/p>\n<p>Of course the skeletons are just store-bought Halloween props, and we used real sheets to make the beds, along with cushions from our couch as pillows. <\/p>\n<p>This was such a quick project; I wish they were all this easy! <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-05.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-05.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop - done!\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-06.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeleton-bunk-beds-decoration-06.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton bunk beds prop \" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I made these skeleton bunkbeds to transform my apartment&#8217;s bathroom into a summer camp dormitory for my 1970s-summer-camp-slasher-movie-themed Halloween party. They were easy! The bunkbeds consist of a few main parts: the beds themselves, the ladder, and the vertical supports holding up the top bunk. I made all of these out of just foam board, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[369,23,14,59,368,360],"class_list":["post-5258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bunk-beds","tag-decoration","tag-halloween","tag-halloween-prop","tag-skeletons","tag-summer-camp-slasher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5258"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5560,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions\/5560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}