I love this. We are about to purchase this bed for our daughter and couldn't decide what to add to it to make it special. Thank you for the fabric panel idea...it's lovely!

Thanks for sharing! I'm in the middle of my own Kura Hack. I bought one on craigslist and decided I wanted to take it apart to paint it, could there be any more pieces? Just waiting for warmer weather so I can get outside and spray poly it and then it will be almost done. I was planning on putting fabric on the panels so thanks for sharing your tip about the glue and the cutting of the material. Hopefully I'll have my own hack posted in June!

rpk123 - We're just about to pick up our craigslisted Kura and I want to paint mine too. Any tips or advice? Kinds of paint/primer? I also want to cover the blue and I'm not sure if I'll try painting it or spray adhesive fabric to the blue side. Since I have yet to actually get my hands on the bed, I'm not sure how realistic this plan might be!

mdmeyer - I had some leftover gray wall primer that I used for this. I just sanded a little with 220 grit both to knock down any shine and two remove and greasy spots from the previous owner and then painted on the primer with a foam brush. It seriously is a million pieces! I think I would go with spray paint if I had to do it again, which is why I am waiting for warm weather to spray on the poly. You can really one paint one side of the wood, maybe two, at one time so it took forever to coat all four sides of the pieces. I was thinking I didn't want to paint over the hardware which is why I took mine apart. If I don't fall in love with any fabric I will probably just spray paint the panels.

I was given a Kura covered in stickers and marker. I sanded down the wood pieces to remove most of the marker and then stained the wood a medium brown which covered the rest. Put on a wax finish and it looked better than new. I spray painted the panels black, but that hasn't held up all that well with all the car racing up the bed and such. I plan to use fabric when I can convince myself to take the thing apart again. :\

I primed and painted mine gloss white, however don't paint in the tracks for the panels like I did - they didn't fit and I had to bust out the old Dremmel to widen them back out. Looks great now, though. I used a paint brush and it did take absolutely forever, with one coat of primer and two coats of paint on all four sides. Meh.

Love the curtain idea, I may have to do that someday depending on how it evolves.

We are about to embark on a Kura Hack ourselves. Always good to see another. We will be painting the frame white and I haven't decided if we will be using spray paint or fabric for the panels. It is the last step in the room makeover we've been working on since January, been putting it off since assembling is such a bear . . .

I primed and painted my son's with chalkboard paint. It's a hit with everyone. The panels under the loft are the most desired ones because, as one friend put it, "it's like you're planning a secret mission!" haha

I like the secret hideaway under the bed. We're short on space, so I like how it can create a new play space.

I LOVE this! We just assembled a KURA bed on Saturday and I an already brainstorming ways to cover the bright blue panels. This is a lovely solution. We're using ours as a low bed for now but there are so many great ideas buzzing around for how to use the space below. Curtains on a tension rod is a great idea!