Anna also wants a loft bed. I was thinking I'd build one for Lily first, see how it goes, then build one for Anna, but it would be easier to get the materials for both together so I'm thinking about Anna's now. Her room is a bit bigger, so the loft would be in a corner. For the two wall sides and the wall-beam junctions I can use the same design as last time, but what should the free-standing corner look like?

It needs some kind of support, which could be a post, a triangle back to the wall below, or a cable to the rafter above. I talked with Anna about what she wanted, and she likes the idea of a post.

There are a lot of ways you could connect the post to the beams and the beams to each other, but here's what I'm thinking:

This is cutting away 2/3 of the top of the post, so both beams can rest on the post. To improve the connection between the beams, I'm thinking of notching the edges of one to create a tongue that will fit into a notch in the middle of the other. I don't know much about joinery, though, so it's possible I'm planning something that either doesn't work very well or is too hard to construct? This will be the first part I do, before cutting things to length, so that if I screw up I have enough left to try again.