a tale of two beds

...well, it's really just a tale of one bed that went through a little transformation and now looks like a different bed. Here was my bed before:

That's the only before shot I took, if you can believe it, because at the time this photo was taken, I wasn't planning to makeover the bed. I was just planning to paint the walls. And tidy up a bit! But then, while painting the ceiling, we sort of broke the bed and had to disassemble it anyway. That's when I decided to do this:

My hubby shot this picture of me through the front window, unbeknownst to me. Or I would have worn a fancier face mask or something. Anyway, I'm using a small circular sander to rough up the finish of the headboard.

'Ello. I'm feelin' hot.

Note: my hubby helped a HUGE amount with this process, even though when he came home from work for the weekend, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. (He just thought he'd come home to our bedroom painted a different color.) He took turns sanding the bed with me and then carried the bed up and down the stairs multiple times.

Then, the best part - which I don't have photos of! - is when he took his Saws-All and cut down the footboard for me! It had slats just like the headboard, but the footboard really divided the room and made our very small, narrow room seem even smaller. So we cut down the whole thing. I used wood putty to fill in the holes...he sanded it again...and after a coat of paint, it looked like it was supposed to be that way! Here's a closeup of what's left of the footboard:

And now the whole thing looks like this:

Notice anything missing? The bulky footboard is history. YES!

And here's a closer look at the finish on the bed. I just painted it with one coat of creamy white in a satin finish. Then, I sanded it by hand to get the exact level of distressing that I wanted. And the process was somewhat distressing, too...thought my arms would fall off. But, I got a new bed in the end...for FREE...so all's well that end's well!

And while I'm at it, I'll tell you about the 30-minute dresser re-do that same weekend. Here it is before...why I didn't even bother to close the drawer, I have no idea. It just goes to show that I had gotten accustomed to a certain level of chaos in that room. Very sad.

One of the most unloved-looking dressers ever. It was missing a knob and no one even cared.

I have to give my hubby props on this one, too, because he knows me so well. I wasn't going to spend any time on this dresser at all, because I didn't feel it was very good quality and not worth the effort. He said, "You know how you are...the whole room will be white except for this dresser, and it will drive you crazy." So I determined that IF I were to do anything to it, it would be a quicky and easy job. So I only spent about a half an hour - if that - and did a dry-brush technique (where I just swiped the brush over it with not a lot of paint on the brush). It kind of a gave it a look of old wood, I think.

And then my favorite part of the dresser is the new, vintage-style glass knobs. I just ran down to Home Depot and picked up these puppies and I LOVE them.

So here it is in the room. Much better, I think!

Okay, the baby's crying so I've gotta run. Stay tuned for some redesign pics from a new client, coming soon!!

*Edited to add: This is Part 2 of two posts. Read Part 1 here!