Welcome to Ferris, young fresh­men! No doubt you’ve found some very inter­est­ing things at our lovely uni­ver­sity, but your adven­ture has already begun in your res­i­dence hall room, hasn’t it?

Remember that email or phone call you got ear­lier in the sum­mer from your future room­mate ask­ing if you wanted to go in together and get a loft kit for your room? Maybe you were the one who sent it; but who cares? It’s in the past now. Point is, there you are, move-in day with a loft kit, two hands and a cock sure atti­tude about putting this thing together.

It sounded like a fairy tale. I know for me, a loft bed was a phan­tas­magor­i­cal uni­verse of being 12 inches away from the ceil­ing, and hav­ing a pirate’s cove under­neath. It’s awe­some, espe­cially when you can throw things down on the peo­ple below you or put your TV on top of your closet where no one else but the peo­ple up top can view it. You feel all high and mighty in your king­dom next to the ceiling.

Then the real­ity sets in: This is no pic­nic. You’ve got a truck­load of crap and no direc­tions. Let me help you: The 2x4s go along the side, ver­ti­cally. Then attach the cross braces. Onto that, bolt the 2x6s. Then use the remain­ing wood as brac­ers to sup­port the weight of you and your room­mate. After that, pop in your chunk(s) of ori­ented strand board (OSB). Sound sim­ple? That’s because it is.

If you can’t put together a loft kit, I’d like you to seri­ously con­sider your poten­tial for suc­ceed­ing in a col­lege atmos­phere. Putting a giant wooden box together isn’t rocket sci­ence, nor is it a feat of engi­neer­ing. You’ve prob­a­bly done it before with Legos, but then again, maybe you were too busy play­ing Lego Batman instead of actu­ally learn­ing the con­cepts of geom­e­try and physics. I don’t mean to sound high and mighty, but I am look­ing down on you from a loft bed, so I’m allowed to.

Tips:

• Paint the bed before you bring it in.

• Use a sta­ple gun to sta­ple car­pet or like mate­r­ial to the posts so they don’t scratch the walls

(and they will, don’t pre­tend that bed won’t be rock­ing at some point).

• Bring a rub­ber mal­let, not a ham­mer.
• Don’t screw the bolts down tight until you’re absolutely sure that’s where they go.
• Ladders are for wimps, or peo­ple who are too drunk to climb into bed.
• Speaking of drunk, you’re going to want that optional side rail, lest you should fall. n

Resources:

fer​ris​.edu/​h​t​m​l​s​/​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​l​i​f​e​/​r​e​s​l​i​f​e​/​g​e​n​e​r​a​l​/​l​o​f​t​s​/​d​o​c​s​/​N​o​r​t​h​_​L​o​f​t​_​P​l​a​n​_​5​_​3​1​_​1​2​.​jpg

Related Posts

1. A Cheap Personality Isn’t Always Bad
2. How to Build a Snowman
3. Cartoon: I Don’t Think That’s How It Works…