Pages

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Project Headboard

As you might remember, I tossed out this picture earlier this week:




Yeah, not so pretty, but it had potential.  At least that was my opinion when I found it on Craigslist for $20.  For quite some time, I had been scouring thrift stores and Craigslist for a full size headboard to put in our small guest room.  I even considered making one myself--either with fabric or an old door we had.  But when I saw this for sale for $20, I decided to give it a shot.  I took this little baby home with me for $15 and started thinking about how I would make it look, how shall I say this, not so 70's?  

Well, it only took one day and really stressful day at work for me to start work on it.  Not sure that you can see it from the picture above (sorry it's so bad, I took it on my phone), but there are a lot of round areas that would be tough to sand.  I knew from the beginning I wanted it to be white to go with the other furniture in the room.  So I opted to not sand, but rather use this wonderful gem called Zinsser.  This stuff is awesome--it sticks to everything and dries fast!  Perfect for my impatient self.  

So I gave it a nice coat of primer while the doggies watched from the backyard.  It seems to dry on impact, so I was able to start the next phase--spray painting!  I love spray paint.  Again, perfect for items that have lots of crazy curves and antsy people like myself!  I used this lovely stuff:




It's a nice off-white color.  Just right for the room it would be going in.  So, two and a half cans later, this is what I ended up with:




We liked it, but we both agreed it was too...too...too...perfect.  So, I took a piece of sandpaper to it's lovely new finish, and came out with this revised option:




Yes, much more our speed.  The new finish would go a lot better with the desk that's already in the room too.  What's cool is that because I didn't sand it down in the beginning, the dark finish came through when I distressed it later on.  I tried to use the sandpaper in the normal places it would get worn, had it actually been used with the solid white finish.

The next night, I put a very light coat of poly to seal everything in, and let it set till the next evening.  The back of the can said three coats of sealer is best, but I was happy with one coat, and again, I am impatient.  So, once it had set for 24 hours, we took it in to see how it looked.  Once we got it attached to the frame, we really liked it!  Except for one small problem.  Take a look and see if you can figure out what the problem might be...




Yep, it's a wee bit short.  But, for the time being, it serves it's purpose.  No more pillows getting tangled up in the curtains.  Also, we were having company the next day, so no time to make it perfect (and it still hasn't been fixed!) but it would be easy to add a couple inches with a 4x4 post added to the bottom.  Here is a picture with part of the pillows moved:




And maybe just one more...



I'm pretty proud of this little guy!  Maybe we'll get around to adding some height to this...sometime.  But for now, it works!  And, it was easy and fun!

1 comment: