I Have Been Busy!

Firstly, let me say that the spacing and paragraphing in blogger has gone bonkers because I don't know how to control it, and there are big gaps in between photos and paragraphs. I have tried to adjust it as much as possible but to no avail. Please put up with my amateurish attempts at maintaining a good looking blog. :P

I have not been blogging because I have been trying to put the boys' bedroom together and I wish now that I took photos of the process. I did take some but I left out some others. Oh well.

First there were the beds. You have seen them already but just in case, click here. The beds had scratches, and some of the veneer had come off. 

I sanded both beds down as much as I could. I used my Dewalt orbital sander as much as I could but the spindles were done by hand.  At first, I sanded in the basement but the sawdust went everywhere and we have our freezer in there. So I took it up to the garage but try working in there when the temperatures are below 0 degrees!  I have to say that I did not give the bed the sort of attention that I would normally give to my other projects because I wanted to get back into the warmth!

Here is the bed, primed in grey primer. (BTW, is it spelt "grey" or "gray"?) Notice the cute little loveseat it is leaning on? I found it on the side of the road, someone threw it out but the springs are very good, even better than the seat I reupholstered! I am waiting to be inspired, in other words, waiting for the right fabric to get me all excited. So it sits in the garage, holding up our other junk!

The painting part was such a nightmare! I have painted wood many times before but that was in Australia, under different climate conditions, using different paint. I started with spray paint and to my dismay, I noticed around the spindles, it dried with a bubbling texture! I sanded it down and did it again. Still the same! I did this about 5 times, I swear! I did a search on the internet and suspected that it was too cold which was why the paint was not drying properly. There was no way I was going to wait till summer! So, I brought it into the house but our house is quite cold too as the heater does not seem to be working downstairs. Still it was crinkling. Matt said he could not see them unless he got really close. Here they are, drying in our family room, near the fire place.

The perfectionista in me decided to sand it all down again and I chose to use regular satin paint - you know, just paint with a brush. That worked very well! I have learnt an important lesson, spray paint does not work so well in winter!

The beds were all set and then I knocked into the headboard while carrying it somewhere and some paint chipped off. I realised that the boys would likely knock the bed a bit so I thought I'd protect it with a layer of clear Polycrylic. Big mistake.

I have also learnt that with Polycrylic, you need to work in a dust free area. Specks of dust and dirt were showing up as spots all over my bed and the shiny look on it made it look cheap. I thought, okay, maybe it needs a second coat, as the directions said to coat furniture three times. Made no difference.

Back to sanding, and repainting again. Not as good as the first time because by this time, I am so sick of doing this bed!  Matt knocks it with his metal watch and paint comes off. I just slap on the area some paint. Who cares already? :)

Okay, brace yourselves for the boys' room. They have a lot of junk! They have both started collecting stuff and I have no idea where to store them. By junk, I mean things like rocks. Hundreds of them. Empty Tic Tac bottles. Bakugans. Empty candy containers. There are others, I don't even know what to describe them. Sometimes when they are at school, I throw out their things because their room is beginning to look like one of the episodes you see in "The Hoarder." Now most of their junk sits in the guest room, waiting for me to sort them out!

They did not have proper beds to sleep on, they used trundle beds, which worked well because they are really into doing forward rolls on their beds right now.

 

See the purple colour? It was great when two girls used to live in this room. I chose the colour Jubilee No 6248 from Sherwin Williams. I had test painted six other colours on the wall but didn't like them. So when I read this post on Apartment Therapy, I told Matt, "This is the colour!"

Hmm, why is the picture so small?

There is an amazing story I will tell you one day about how they mix paint in stores all over the USA but I was save it for later or this post will never end!

It looks more blue in the photos but when you are in the room, it is actually a shade of gray.

 

Initially, we put the British Union Jack dresser in between the two beds, as inspired by this picture.

However, the dresser was wider than I thought (because I don't measure!) and one of the bed would come very close to the entrance to the room. When you opened the door, it would hit the foot of the bed. Drat! Plus, it did not look right. So now, I will just leave it where it is, ignore the brown dresser in the room, it will go to the guest room. I am trying to find a little Danish mid century open bookshelf to go between the beds, like the one below. I saw this beautiful piece on Etsy but I don't have the budget for the boys' room. It is also a lot wider than what I had in mind, what would be perfect is just half of that, just perfect for the gap that it is showing in the picture now.

The wood slats you see are in different colours because the original beds only had three planks each and we wanted to give the boys more support, especially when they do their gymnastics on the bed. I got pine wood from Home Depot, came back and cut it on my mitre saw. I let the boys have a go at it too and they were very scared at first but I want them to start young!

 

I know that I will never make a good interior designer because I did not choose the fabrics/bedding/art to match the paint and now I am stuck with options for curtains/blinds.  I will have to work backwards! But I do it with a happy heart because it has been a really enjoyable process. Come along with me and we will see how this room turns out!