Sweet Dreaming

When we decided to move we decided that it would be a fantastic time to get new bedroom furniture. Our old bedroom suite was a mix and match of Ikea's finest.  Okay so really our bed frame was the only piece that could have been classified as Ikea's finest as it was actual solid wood, but our dresser was particle board junk covered in vinyl.  Our night stands were one of the first things I refinished.  They are still in great shape, but I was ready for a different look.

For a brief moment I though about buying brand new.  You know with us being in the middle of a move and what not.  I even made it so far as to walk into a furniture store.  I swear I broke out in hives at the thought of paying full price for a piece of furniture.  So after convincing Señor Hotness that I could handle a project mid-move I took to craigslist to find some goodness, and I came up empty handed.  That almost never happens.  Then by chance I decided to check out a super cool shop here in Ruston called Callie's Corner.  May I just say this place is the most awesometastic treasure shop EVER.  Anyway she just happened to have a king size bed that was needing some love.  Which just happens to be right up my alley.  The only problem was we picked up a desk for Señor Hotness at the same time.  Long story short we ended up sleeping on a mattress on the floor for about two weeks.

So we started out with it looking something like this.

I don't have a true before picture.  The back had two padded pieces, and as you can tell the side rails aren't original.  When we got it home Señor Hotness started giving everything the once over.  He decided that while the rails were probably okay he would feel better if they were sturdier.

It turned out that while the head board and foot board were both solid wood the furniture manufacturer decided to cut cost by using MDF for the side rails.  Super not cool.

The hubs didn't trust it so instead of salvaging any he decided to scrap the whole thing, and start fresh.  The only thing we reused were the metal pieces.

That's right ladies, my man knows how to use a chisel.  He got over the chisel action pretty quickly, and we are now proud owners of a router tool.

Then he both glued and screwed on the support piece.  He used red oak for this.  In short our bed is probably sturdy enough now to hold a herd of elephants, or you know our girl horde.

Our last bed frame was a black, and I was wanting something lighter so I opted to paint this white.

But first I would like to introduce you to what was for a time the very bane of my existence.  This sucker took me a half hour to remove.  No joke.  I'm not sure what kind of adhesive they used, but I'm pretty sure its military grade.

Then it was time for the painting to begin.  I used DIY chalk paint on this as I am still completely in love.

One layer on wasn't looking so good.  Its always about this stage that my girls start saying things like, "wow thats super ugly mom".  Its always good to know that I inspire such faith.

I thought it was cute that he labeled to boards so that he didn't screw the metal pieces on wrong.

Here it is how it looked two coats later.  Just in case you were curious this entire thing used an entire quart of paint.  I have never used even remotely that much paint before when refinishing a piece.

As you can see it was still streaky in spots, but as I've said before I generally don't sweat this to much as I feel like it adds a depth to the over all finish.

Glaze going on.  The color I use is called barrista, and I've been using this same quart sized can for three years.  I can officially say now that I have used over half.

I always find it a little silly that after slathering it on I wipe most of it off, but sometimes that is what you need.  I personally prefer this to still have a slightly sloppy look.

I always love to see the transformation.

As you can see after the glaze went on it looked like a lovely antiqued white, just how I wanted, instead of stark white.

Here is the section all finished.

Here it is finally all assembled, and in the house.  Sorry for the trashy pillows, but at this point I still didn't know where all the pillow cases were.

Here is my pillow-less picture.  The original plan was to recover the padded back on the bed, but then my cursed laziness reared its ugly head.  Honestly in the end with my crazy awesome bright and fun quilt I thought that another pattern introduced may be too busy.  So I opted to stay with the originally padded back (that was still in great condition) as it still complimented my antique white finish.

If you will recall my craigslist freebies from a while ago.  The table was a previous project that we used in our family room.  They seemed perfect as bedside accessories. The chair is totally retro, but crazy comfortable and actually gives the room the funky feeling I love coupled with the quilt.  While the table is short for the bed it is perfect for the chair where I have a place to sit to read, study, or surf the computer.  If I ever decided to lose the chair I would totally start looking for a small antique dresser to repurpose for a bedside table.

This my friends is the honesty shot.  In truth my bedside table is sporting a myriad of things (few of which belong on my night stand). I'm often do weird things like sort socks in the floor, and I still haven't found all of those pillow cases.

However misleading this picture might be sporting my sewing table as a night stand (we tossed that idea around a bit).  This bed has been girl approved, and as you can see it does comfortably hold a horde. It has also become a favorite place for our girl horde to watch a Friday night movie, and get some mom and dad snuggles.  

At the end of the day we have a crazy sturdy pretty piece that didn't give me heart failure over the cost.

Linked up at: missmustardseed.com

Building an Office of Awesomeness!

Our house is noisy.  That, my friends, is an indisputable fact.  Our girls have little to no volume control, and have the intense need to have loud and meaningful conversations with you the MOMENT you get on an important phone call.  It is for that reason that Señor Hotness has always had to rent an office away from home.

So after our permanent move to Louisiana (fun fact my four year old calls it YOU-isiana), we started office hunting.  Of course when I say 'we' I mean Señor Hotness had to do the scouting on his own because I am to busy existing in chaos to help.  What he found was a crazy awesome historic building with some incredibly unique and distinctive features to it.

This is the beautiful atrium in the middle of the building.

Here is a close up of those awesome beams.

This is the view straight from his office.

His office is just a small affair, but that is all he needs being a one man show out here.  That being said you can't just put any old desk in a building like this.  So we started looking for something unique that I could refinish since I hadn't painted anything in a month and I was starting to suffer serious withdrawals. 

This is what we came across.

Isn't it a beauty.  It had a very sophisticated feel to the legs, and a really pretty star burst pattern to the top.  I clearly forgot to snap a true before picture, but in my defense we were moving in.

Once we got the top all sanded down smooth we stained it.  I picked Antique Maple because it matched the awesome wood work that is throughout the building  I also branched out by trying gel stain.  If you are wondering how I liked the gel stain I will say I hated it.  I ended up used 3 times more of the gel than I would have of the liquid stain.  My new found hate of gel stain aside it turned out truly beautiful.

Ta Da!

With the top taken care of it was time to turn our attention to the legs.

Señor Hotness had to paint this all by himself because I was busy doing another project.  I did, however, take a break from my busy schedule to snap a few pictures of him for posterities sake.

Here is a clearer view of how stately these legs were.  Spoiler alert they look awesome painted black.

Isn't he cute holding a paint brush in his hand?  We were working night and day on this.  Just kidding...it was almost exclusively a night time project. Daytime is strictly for schooling, working, or unpacking depending on which family member you are.

After all the paint was dry I clear coated it which was more difficult that you would think.  Given that we were doing this in the carport we had several delays due to humidity and temperature.  It still needs another coat of black paint, but not nearly as much as Señor Hotness needed more than a folding table for his desk.

Pretty Miss P, aka Mini Cleo, never passes up an opportunity to have her picture taken.  This was it sitting in our car port waiting to be transported to the office.

I'm so glad that Señor Hotness is a handy guy.  You should have seen us lug this sucker through his building.

I'm a firm believer that a person is more productive if they are fully dressed, and ready to face to world or random strangers that might knock on your door and then need to wonder if the house has been seized by homeless squatters.  Not that thats every happened to me, but I think it wise to always call ahead of time.  People could be painting, or might have decided that today was a good day to embrace elastic waist hobo painting clothes because they're comfy. As just a random example.

As you can see trying to paint black at night might not be the best idea.  We will plan a time in the evening when we can do touch-ups on the bottom.  Honestly it shows up with the flash, but just looking at it regularly you don't really see any of that wood grain peeking through.

Ta-da!  Senor Hotness's super swank boss hog desk.

I am way excited about the prospect of decorating an office.  Señor Hotness is a good sport about it. So stay tuned for future updates on the office of awesomeness.

Linked up at: missmustardseed.com