New Bed {Show and Tell}

I'm finally done with R.'s new bed and I am in awe. I love how it turned out.

I started with my inspirational bed from PB. That lead to making a look a like head board.

After drawing several different plans for the platform, I came up with this very simple bed frame.

A coat of a colored match stain and some polyurethane later and this is the final product. I am relieved that the bed is finished and now comes the fun part...the decorating. I am unsure if I am keeping the rug or the curtains. I am going to keep the green quilt. That was one of the requests that I got from R. I may spray paint the lamp a more vibrant color or get rid of it all together. I'd also like to bring in a night stand that I have which will need a little revamping before entering the house. There is still a lot to do, but I'm happy that the room is slowly coming together.

Stained Bed

I am all stained out. I have spent countless hours staining everything lately and after staining a few test colors, I have chosen this mahogany color for the bed. It's a color that I already had.

It wasn't exactly what I originally envisioned. However, nothing that I build ever is. Yet, I love how it turned out and the fact that it only took one coat to get this deep rich color made my day.

The finish is far from done. It will need at least 2 coats of varnish with sanding in between.

I love the building process. I hate the staining and varnishing part. I did see stains that had varnish in them, but none of the colors looked the way they were described in the end. Therefore, I'll take the four step process to achieve the color I want. I can't wait to see it in the room.

Bed Construction Complete

So I finally finished building the bed. Hooray. It took me a lot longer than I anticipated due to my changing mind. I wanted to be completely confident that my bed would be able to withstand all my kids jumping on it. A few adjustments and I am happy with the construction.

I originally wanted a footboard, but after some thought, I decided against it because the room would feel larger without it. I also like the fact that my kids can sit at the edge of the bed like they do on my bed. Should I decide later on to build a foot board, this design could easily accommodate that.

The question that lies now is what color stain. Here are my options.

Find out what I end up staining the bed with.

First comes the Headboard

I spent Saturday Morning building this.

I learned so many things building A.'s bed that building R.'s bed was pretty much easy peesy...especially this particular headboard.

Then, I spent the rest of the weekend, trying out different mattresses and really thinking about whether or not I want to buy a boxspring with a bed frame or build a platform myself.

After A LOT of thought (yes, I stayed up lying in bed just thinking about measurements, the construction process and the over all time and price of my options...does that make me a true nerd?), I think I have decided to build a platform for the bed. At first, I wanted to make a footboard, but after looking at the very shallow room, I didn't want to give up the 4 inches that the footboard would consume. I also wanted the kids to be able to sit at the edge of the bed like they do in my room.

I then decided that I would build a platform so that I could make the bed much lower than the boxspring and frame combined. E.'s bed was bought at bombay kids and is the perfect height for kids so I plan on building this bed with a lowered height.

Hopefully, what I envisioned for the construction of the bed makes it look both great as well as sturdy. It will have to wait a bit as I am preparing for a HUGE purge of things with an upcoming garage sale. I can't wait to clear out my garage so that I can build things AND park my car in the garage at the same time. Wish me luck.