Fixing a Broken Doll Bed

This is my daughter's first Instructable. Her name is Bella. She is 10. She found a doll bed at Goodwill that was missing any sort of mattress or bottom of any kind. It had also been assembled incorrectly, preventing the interlocking pieces from, well, interlocking. Thus, she got a smoking deal on it after asking if I thought we could fix it. Frankly, I'm a little insulted that she had to ask whether that was doable. I told her about the Instructables community and she got very excited to share the process in order to inspire others who might want to save doll furniture. The pictures above show the finished project (spoiler alert) and the original bed, after we reassembled it correctly.

On the inside of both bed rails were square notches where a base plate or spreaders should have gone. We measured the distance from the inside face of one notch to the inside face of the notch opposite of it. I didn't realize it at the time, but the bed rails were bowed outward a little, making the distance between the center pair of notches longer than the distance between the other two pairs. I would encourage you to measure each of the three distances separately.

We got a piece of 3/4" square dowel from Ace Hardware. Using a tape measure, we marked the length of the first spreader. We then used a square to make a straight line. Finally, we used a hand saw to cut the first spreader to length. We repeated this process for the other two spreaders.

Install the spreaders. These provide primary support, but aren't enough by themselves to constitute a bed. We used duct tape to connect the spreaders and provide a flexible platform. If need be, the whole thing can still be dismantled and stored or transported flat.

Lastly, we folded up a throw blanket and tucked it down into the bed. Voila! Bella's doll ended up with a perfectly serviceable bed. More importantly, Bella learned to approach problems creatively, recycle, use her head along with some other tools, and share her experience with others.