House Bed FAQs

Whenever I share about the house bed that I built for my daughter, I inevitably get a lot of repeated questions about it. I'm dedicating an entire post to the eight most frequently asked questions I get about the house bed. These are not in any particular order. They're just questions I get and I'm going to answer for you today.

House Bed FAQs | How do you change the sheets on the bed?

Well, for one, I use a brand of sheets Beddy's. They are a genius product where the fitted sheet and the comforter are zipped to each other, making it a lot easier to make the bed as well as keep the bed made. So, when I'm ready to wash the sheets, I just flip the mattress on its side, put the Beddys on it, and then use sheet suspenders to keep them on there really nicely. These help keep the sheet from sliding around, and every mattress has a different thickness, so sheet suspenders are really great if you have a mattress that's not as thick as the pockets on the Beddys. Once I do that, I flip the mattress back down and fill it up with all of her stuff. This part takes the longest because she sleeps with a LOT of things in her bed and knows if something is missing.

House Bed FAQs | Is the mattress directly on the floor?

No, it is not. The bed is built with the ends and the sides coming in just a little bit. This means the the mattress is lifted slightly off of the floor like a traditional bed frame would be.

House Bed FAQs | Do you have a monitor in her bed?

She was much younger when I first made the bed to the point we had a baby gate on there to keep her in. At that time, we did have a monitor on her for safety. However, we haven't been using it for a long time now. I recently took it out as she is getting older and deserves her privacy.

House Bed FAQs | Does it get hot inside the bed?

The monitor we had in her bed actually measured the degrees inside of her bed as 66 F. That's not her room temperature, that's inside of the bed. She also sleeps with a ton of blankets and a ton of stuffed animals all around her all the time. She overheats really easily and gets sensory dis-regulated when she does, so I don't think it could be uncomfortably hot to be in there. I think because there's such a wide opening for the door as well as four windows, two on the dormer and one on each side, it allows for a lot of airflow.

House Bed FAQs | Does she have nightlights?

Yes, she does. She has two actual physical nightlights that she keeps in her bed that we charge every night. And then we also put fairy lights outside of her bed and we have different ones for different seasons and holidays. So she gets the comfort of nightlights while also being able to express herself with decorating.

House Bed FAQs | Is the gate safe?

When I first built the bed, I installed a gate across the opening. My daughter is autistic and, at the time, she would run off in the middle of the night and knew how to open doors. Experts say that it is actually safer for a child that runs off to be in a space where first responders can come and find them easily in case of emergency. The gate was the right decision for us at the time.

House Bed FAQs | Do we still have the gate?

About a year after I made the bed and installed the gate we were able to remove it. We had been working a lot in therapy with my daughter focusing on not running off and just safety things in general. At this point, we felt like it was safe for her to be without it. I made some curtains and put up a curtain rod so she could have curtains that still helped her feel enclosed in this space. Yes, the gate is gone now, but she still has that enclosed feeling and feels very safe in her bed.

House Bed FAQs | Do you have build plans?

Oh yes, I do! I have cut lists, shopping lists and everything you need to build the exact same bed I built. The plan makes it easy to build in five separate pieces so you have the option to build it outside of your house, instead of being pigeonholed into building it in a small bedroom like some other plans require.

Hopefully this post addresses most of the common questions that you have. Obviously, there's still other questions I'm not addressing here, but like I said, those are the eight most frequently asked questions about the house bed and how it works in our home. You can find the links for all of the stuff inside of it, outside of it, accessories, toys, everything linked below as well as the build plans in the shop. Happy building!