So this little scenario is how not to do things! This bed was cheap in materials, but definitely not in time.
It all started 10 years ago when the neighbors threw this bed out to the curb. It was painted white, and a little beat up, but I thought it had potential. I grabbed it off the curb and hauled it into my garage where I promptly started stripping off the old paint. That became quite a project as I stripped that paint out of all those little crevices. I lost interest and considered putting it back on the curb, looking worse than ever.
It sat in my garage for about three years, when I decided to get it back out and finish the job. When I had finally stripped every last drip of paint, I realized that it was meant to be a white bed, because some of it was solid wood, some of it was plywood, and it was made of different kinds of wood. I tried staining it, but that looked awful and discouraged again, it went into the attic for 4 more years.
As I was painting and antiquing my bathroom cabinets, I decided to get it out again, and between coats on the cabinets, I used the same paint and painted the bed. I then antiqued it using walnut stain, but more subtly than the cabinets. Instead of staining the whole thing, I took a small brush and just swept some stain into the the crevices. I think I will add finials to the posts, just to finish it off.
What I learned from this: evaluate a project thouroughly before I begin! I could have easily sanded it and painted it 10 years ago and saved myself the headache!
This project cost:
bed - free
stripper and steel wool - about $10
paint - leftover from bathroom
stain - leftover
time - way too much!!!
