DIY Daybed for Tiny House Seating and Extra Sleeping

On our latest tiny house build, the homeowner had a very specific request. She needed a daybed to fit a 14" tall sewing machine underneath, with two big open compartments.

Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, here's the problem. Standard seating height is 18". Subtract 4" for a twin size mattress and you've got 14". And we haven't even started building a daybed yet.

What I ended up doing was building "legs" and attaching a support cleat to the back wall,

And then spanning the top with 2x4s.

Yes, we could have saved an extra 3/4" by using 1x slats, but we would have had to add an extra leg to support the weaker boards.

The homeowner wanted a box built behind the heater, since it would be hard to access from the front. We tied the daybed into this box for even more support.

The overall finished height ended up being 19-1/2", but it's comfotable and works great in the space. It actually turned out really well! And the storage compartments are huge.

The homeowner wanted to keep the openings for now, but I'd love to see trundle drawers. They'd be easy to do -

Just build a couple of boxes and put wheels on the bottom,

And then nail drawer faces to the front.

The entire tutorial for this mudroom is here.

And of course, I've got you covered with the free plans for this daybed project below.

Enjoy, build and share!

XO Ana