About Us
Welcome and thank you for visiting our web site.
At College Bed Lofts, all we do is manufacture
unfinished wooden Loft Beds, Bunk Beds and High Rise
Platform Beds for youth, teen and college students. We custom build each bed to your exact specifications.
If you are looking for a
, sorry, we don't carry
them.
You will find a wealth of information on this site
about loft beds and we hope you will consider purchasing your bed from us.
We offer a very sturdy and heavy duty loft bed that will hold up to the toughest
kids and college student environment.
On our web site, you may click on most pictures to enlarge it
and you may click on any
to go to another page.
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
Working out of our garage
How did you get started?
College Bed Lofts was started in 2002 by Mike Vence,
a student at Penn State University and his dad, John. At that time, Mike and and
a few buddies rented a large house and were in the process of starting a new
fraternity on campus. As both Mike and John were avid woodworkers, they
built a loft bed for Mike and his roommate. When friends saw the beds,
they wanted one too, so Mike and John started building them on weekends in their
garage. Soon word spread around other campuses and orders started coming
in. In 2004 they were ready to move out of the garage and they moved into a warehouse in a
nearby industrial complex.
Our current Location
They developed a web site and the plan was to sell lofts to college campuses in the
Northeastern US.
In 2004 they started talking to FedEx about shipping nationwide.
With the help of FedEx packaging services, FedEx was able to show them how to
best package their beds to be able to ship them economically using FedEx Ground
and Home Delivery Services. With nationwide shipping, orders
increased, and in 2007 they moved to their new facility and currently have 10 employees.
Last year they shipped more than 5,000 orders to over 450
in the 48 continental states.
As a family business, everyone is involved. It was
John's wife, Bobbie, who came up with the idea of selling just the
.
One night Bobbie mentioned that John and Mike were having such a good time
building these together, we should offer just the plans so other parents and
their children could build them as a family project. A few days later they
offered the plans on their web site and they now sell thousands per year.
John's daughter, Sarah, a high school music teacher and the "artist"
in the family, is the main designer of the web site and is featured on the
.
John's nephew, Anthony, is the brains behind the camera and the youtube
. The family dog, Aria, is the shop dog and is
frequently seen sleeping on the bottom of the
.
Originally, their thought was the beds were only going to be
used by college students. One day a mother of a 6 year old called and
asked if they could build the bed a little lower and add a few more safety rails.
She painted it white and posted it on the
page. Soon, customers were asking for that "",
and now youth lofts represent about 75% of their business. A typical
comment they receive from customers is "it was a fun family project to assemble,
paint and decorate together".
We have three main business goals:
1)
each bed to the customer's exact specifications.
With each college having their own height requirements, with apartments having
sometimes 7', 8' and 9' or greater ceiling heights, and with different
thicknesses of mattresses for home and college, we decided early on that by
building each bed to the customer's exact specifications they can better maximize the
space in the room.
2)
. We know college students can't wait 3 - 4
weeks for their bed, (the semester is half over by then) and parents of young
children, once they have decided to do a
for their child, can't
wait either. We build and ship them out in a few days and with fast
shipping, orders arrive quickly.
3)
. We know in this
age of instant communications, internet and cell phones that with good customer
service word-of-mouth advertising moves fast, but bad customer service moves
even faster. So, we strive to meet each customer's requirements. We
are
A
and
verified.
Ok, so who is "Don" that we talk to when we call? Don was one of
our first employees and is now our Operations Manager responsible for customer's
orders, scheduling and shipping. There is no one who knows more about loft
beds, bunk beds and high rise platform beds than Don. If you have a
question, need more information or just want to place your order over the phone,
give
a call.
Click below to see a special news report about us
site,
or if you need assistance call
and he
will help you to choose the right loft to fit your needs and process your order right over the phone. We also accept
over the phone.
To Order by phone
Call
Don
at
607-739-2331
or toll free
866-739-2331
Customer Service Hours: Mon - Fri
9 - 4 pm ET
