I'm constantly on the phone with my amazing and super creative and talented mother in law. We toss ideas back and forth all the time about design and remodeling and space saving ideas for me and Brandon's growing family. We talked about a lot of ideas and looked in Pinterest but the best Idea we came up with was using some storage racks I had previously had installed in my garage ceiling. I remembered the installer said they hold 1000 lbs. and these racks will not how anywhere in an earthquake. I quickly took my kids out to the garage and had Brandon hoist them up and see if they liked being up in the air and talked about the possibility of a bed just like that in their room. They thought the idea was sooo cool and waited patiently until Craig the storage installer would come and install their new bed in the air! My friend Lisa told me theirs racks were white (ours were grey) so we thought the white would disappear into the ceiling making this loft bed seem to be magically suspended.
I was trying to cover up a beautiful paisley wallpaper I imported from Europe and wanted to keep it nice and that's where he idea of paneling or a cork boras covering the walls came into play. I googled cork walls and loft beds. Mom in law thought a rock wall would be cool for them to get in and out of bed with so here's some of the pictures we drew from for our inspiration.
First we hired our excellent garage storage rack, installation expert, Craig. He's the best! He hung one 4x8' section with lag bolts from the rafters and another 2x4' section to creat an "L" shaped 6x8' loft bed all suspended from the ceiling. We loved the idea of a completely open area under the bed to play with no bunk bed legs or extra bulky wood in the way taking up space. These over head storage racks hold 1000 lbs. so we don't have to worry about them falling down or coming loose.
Next we bought 2 mattress's from IKEA for a couch that folds into a bed and happened to be on clearance. If you unzip the cover of the mattress you will find thick 4" foam that we a scored and cut using our cutco knifes (you could also use a electric serated knife) to fit the two bed sizes and ziped the cover and folded over the excess fabric.
To make sure the boys don't roll off the beds while sleeping we bought bungee cords ($1.50 @ Home Depot) that matched the unique and slightly industrial look of the room 
We already had the big skate board wall mural from pottery barn teen and the lockers from IKEA years ago. The egg was from As-Is section in IKEA. 
All the posters and stickers, t-shirts and magazines were signed and autographed and were curtousy of a super sweet and awesome pro skater Dave Duncan.
The walls around the room have the lol of cork board but they are "sound board" used for music and recording studios. You can find this at Home Depot for $10 per 4x8' x 3/4" sheet. Be very careful to not break it on your way home from Home Depot. We had measures all of our walls and had Home Depot makes 10 cuts on 5 sheets and we carefully out it in the Yukon and carefully carried it up to the boys room. This stuff should be treated like a cake on "Cake Boss" because until you have it screwed into the walls it can break SO easy. Now when it's installed which took us 30 minutes! You won't need to be too worried about it breaking or chipping. My daughter Jayden held up the sound board and I screwed it in about every 3-4 feet. I loved working with the sound board because it is extremely light weight like cork board. You can push push pins and tacks into the sound board just like cork board too! If you want to put up cork board it will be 10x's the price if not more and it's a pretty big project you will need to glue the cork rolls into Masonite with a roller and cut and fit the Masonite to your walls. the sound board was $40.
We used little screws and washers. If you show a dude at Home Depot this pic he can get you the right screws and washers to match. But super easy to install and it basically just tacking the sound board to the drywall we weren't trying to find studs to secure the sound board.
The rope and ladder (from IKEA) are hung from the over head storage brackets that hold 1000 lbs with carabiners and my son Steven tied a special Boy Scout knot so the rope stays in place.
The rock wall was made using a 5/8" 4x8' piece of MDF. This is very heavy! We had Home Depot cut 4" off the top because it's easier to install 8' into an 8' high ceiling by having some room for clearance. Then we just added the 4" piece separately. I ordered an assorted pack of rock climbing holds from amazon here http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001SNR236/ref=pd_aw_sbs_9?pi=SL500_SS115
With the MDF sheet I drill holes for the bigger holds using a 1/2 drill bit and secured the holds with the bolt, washer and Allen wrench supplied in the kit. Then carried the finished rock wall up to the boys room and secured it to the studs. Note: the bolts and screws will be sticking out the back side of the MDF or plywood you use so be sure to buy screws to secure the wall into the studs that are long enough. I used 3" wood screws.
We needed some testers and beignet rock climbers. We knew just the boys to ask!
Finished result with a happy climbing kid!
Thanks for reading!!!
Xoxo - me
Please excuse any typos and grammatical errors :)
