From One Bed to Another

So back in September, after the dust had settled from wedding madness I got antsy to redo the bedroom. The bedroom was the first place I tackled when we moved into fh in October 2009 because it was painted a mold green color. Lovely. Here is the bed side of the room in its first iteration:

Then, last Christmas, M made me a bed. Let me say that again, HE MADE ME A BED FOR CHRISTMAS. It is incredible. Yes, I'm bragging. Cause it's AMAZING.

You (the good DIY blog reader that you are),  recognize it as the Ana White Farmhouse bed, and I couldn't have been more elated. I had stayed in Florida (where I'm from) with my family a week longer than he did, and he elfed around and made the bed on the hush hush so it was in situ when I got home. I almost died with excitement. We had been sleeping on an Ikea Malm before, and I was sick and tired of sleeping less than an Oats height off the ground.



The bed lived unfinished in our room for months while I made matching nightstands (also from Ana White), and planned the wedding. (The old bed is still sitting in the basement. Hello Spring yard sale. And the old nightstands have been converted into tool storage in the mud room. They look great with a vice bolted to them.) In October, it was finally time to tackle the bed and the bedroom. I picked the bedding and the wall color right from the West Elm catalog. Theirs:



Ours:

Yes, I took what they had and mimeographed it for our bedroom. So what? I love it. And there was no repainting 4 times over because I hated the paint color I chose, which was a plus. I sanded all surfaces of the bed with 3 grits (40,150 and 300 I think, and sorry there aren't more pics, it was PB i.e. pre-blogging). I used our random orbital sander attached to our shiny new shop vac we got from the in-laws for the wedding.

I cannot even tell you how well that worked. I honestly thought I was going to be dealing with a 1920s style dustbowl in the bedroom and I could nary find a dust particle in the room, even after 3 rounds of sanding! Craftsman for the win.

After sanding, I wiped down the bed and treated it with a pre-stain conditioner for softer woods to help the stain settle more evenly. Then, I wiped on two coats of Minwax English Chestnut, followed by two coats of Minwax Satin Finish Wipe-on Poly et viola! We have finished bed!

Now, let's be honest, this process is never that easy. And, SANDING IS BORING. YOU CANNOT EVEN LISTEN TO PODCASTS WHILE SANDING BECAUSE IT IS TOO LOUD. I did sand and stain while the bed was in the bedroom. Not exactly a back of the label indicated situation...however, I did have the window wide open and we let the place air out for 7 days before moving our stuff back in there. I also propped the bed up on some scrap wood so I could sand and stain the bottom edges without marring the carpet. Not the most foolproof method, but it beat taking the bed apart, lugging it outside, working on it, and then bringing it back in to reassemble. Sometimes convenience beats best practice. This is one of those times.



This was probably the biggest, and in the long run, most permanent change we made while redoing the bedroom (when we eventually move, the bed will go with us to our next bedroom while the rest of the projects may not land in the bedroom next time). We did tackle a couple more projects in there, including this:

Guesses??