New Bedroom Nightstands

I'm very excited to share today that I found a pair of nightstands for our bedroom.  Yes, I get overly excited about furniture but did I say they are Awesome with capital A nightstands! Give it up for these babies! Um huh!

On this bedroom post where I talked about what I was dreaming for the bedroom I mentioned wanting to get new nightstands.  I really like the idea of building floating nightstands but when I came across these babies on good ole Craigslist I couldn't pass them up.  It was love at first sight, I know some of you might be thinking, is she blind?  Those things are a yucky, mucky, beigey, yellowy, pukey color!  But those of you that know about furniture and potential, stop drooling, they are mine, I found them first!  

Let me explain why they are so fabulous!  Just look at how stylish they are, they are Hollywood Regency, I mean come on the name alone says it!  I love all the amazing detail, who doesn't loooove faux bamboo?  And the brass details on the corners and back plates on the pulls, the canning and trim on the doors, those sexy little legs.    

They are much bigger than the standby pieces we have now.  They almost line up with the top of the mattress which makes them perfect for bedside tables.  They have concealed storage which is always a plus.  Who doesn't want to hide all there unsightly junk?  And not to mention they are great quality, vintage, wooden babies.  

Obviously the finish is all wrong and I have to give them a serious paint makeover, but that's the fun part!  One of them is missing a pull which is going to be a pain in the butt to track down.  I know, I've already tried with no luck.  If anyone knows where I could find a match for these pulls please drop me a line on the comments I would sooo appreciate it.    

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Dreaming Up The Master Bedroom

We are dreaming up a cozy, comfy, minimalist, master bedroom to retreat to at the end of the night. Our new master bedroom is not huge but it is the biggest bedroom we have ever had.  It has a couple of good aspects about it as well as some bad ones too.  We also have a lot of key pieces that we need and love but it's not put together in a way that reflects our style.  I have pinned lots and lots of bedroom ideas in hopes that some day I can transition them into our bedroom.

  The master bedroom in our last home was about 11' x 12'.  We made very good use of every inch of space we had.   Below are some pictures of our old bedroom.

I made a pros and cons list of our new bedroom.

Pros

• Three ample closets = lots of storage. 
• Three medium sized windows = natural light.
• A half bathroom. 
• Bigger size than what we've had before.

Cons

• Too many doorways and windows leaving us with limited options for furniture placement.
• No overhead lighting.   
• The only room in the house that is carpeted, I prefer hardwood. 
• No bathtub or shower in the bathroom.
• The whole room including walls and trim were once painted in oil base paint, of course I noticed after we painted, now we have peeling paint. 
• We still have a lot of trim to paint with all those doors and windows.
• All the doors are mismatched louvered doors too, I really don't like them.

The good thing is most of the cons are cosmetic things we can change.  The limited options for furniture placement isn't such a big deal.  I like the wall where the headboard is right now and that's our biggest piece of furniture.  What makes up for it is that in return we have lots of storage.  I try to look at the bright side of things.  We don't have overhead lighting but I get to have lots of lamps, I love lamps.  Sure it's a carpeted room but at least the rug is new, plush and a neutral color that we can work with.  The bathroom doesn't have a shower but we only had one bathroom in our last place so it's a treat to have a second bathroom.  So the room definitely has some things going for it.  I'm really happy that we have more space and storage.  

As for the pieces that we love and want to keep, number one would be our headboard and bed frame combination. We designed and built that beast with our own two hands.  It weighs a ton but it's definitely our favorite piece in the room, that stays!  
*The papers on the wall are pictures that my daughter makes for me and tapes them on the wall for me, she's so sweet.

Next up is my dresser, its a Mid-century piece that I refinished a couple years ago.  It is very well built and that is my favorite thing about it.  The six drawers give us lots of more storage for smaller clothing pieces.  I might try moving it over to the other wall across from where it is because I have a matching tall dresser that I want to redo for my hubby and I think it would look better on this wall.  So we will see how that works out later on.

The wall lamps flanking the headboard are new, we bought them for this room and we love them.  I like that they don't take up any surface space from our nightstands.

The nightstands are standby pieces until we build or buy new ones.  The one on my husbands side was built completely out of scrap pieces of wood we had laying around.   My side has a campaign one that I found on craigslist.  But like I said they are temporary solutions.

The trunk at the foot of the bed, I would love to keep but I'm not sure because... Once upon a time we had a nice leather bench at the foot of the bed that was always covered in clean laundry and bed covers so I got rid of it.  Now it lives with my sister and brother in law and is covered in their bed linens and laundry (ha, ha, ha, ha...evil laugh). The End!

 I love looking at my Master Bedroom Pinterest board it makes me smile but when I look at our actual bedroom it makes me yawn (pun intended).  A couple of things that I noticed from my pins are...

• The spaces are minimal, there's not lots of furniture pieces or bedding.
• They look cozy because of all the layered textures and materials.
• Most of them have white walls with mostly neutral colors as accents.
• Greenery, plants.

In order to incorporate some of these aspects, I will start by only keeping the furniture pieces that I need.  This is harder for me than most people because I love furniture, it's what I do, I redesign furniture.  I do want some different nightstands though, I was thinking maybe some floating ones.  Keeping bedding to a minimum is easy, I feel like I have that down packed.  I hate extra fluff on the bed because I don't like making the bed, so if there's a lot of stuff that needs to be put back on the bed, chances are I wont be making the bed (I hope my mom isn't reading this post!). 

For coziness, I can switch out the pillow shams for something with a bit more pattern or texture and maybe add one long throw pillow in the middle.  Our blanket might not be the prettiest but its warm and cozy for us and the colors are neutral so that stays until we can afford one something of better quality.  Some window treatment will help warm up the space too but I'm still not sure if I want to go with my usual woven shades plus drapes combo or something more simple like fabric roman shades.  We also need to add some wall art.

We already painted the room when we first moved in, the color is nice light and I have yet to paint all the trim in white so that should lighten up the room a bit more.  I also want to paint all the the doors black.

Adding a couple plants in here will bring in some color and another element of nature, while still keeping everything pretty neutral.  I've said before that my goal is to one day have plants in every single room of the house.  So far the only rooms that don't have any plants are the bedrooms and they really should,  since plants are good for cleaning air pollutants.

So it looks like I have my work cut out for me.  I can't wait to see all of these ideas come together so that we can have a cozy, comfortable, uncluttered space to relax in at night.

My headboard tutorial

I want to share how we built our headboard.

I tried downloading Sketch up but apparently you need to learn how to use it before you start doodling on it like I did, bad idea, I'm going to need to take a course some day.  So here is the unfancyest tutorial ever.

Shopping List
2- 2" x 3" @ 8'
4- 2" x 4" @ 8'
7- 1" x 3" @ 8'
2- 2" x 2" @ 8'
3- 1" x 2" @ 8'
2 1/2" screws (we countersunk the screws otherwise you could just use a Kreg jig and buy pocket whole screws).
1" screws (for middle support on back of the headboard)

Cutting List
2- 2" x 3" @ 59"  Top and Bottom of the Frame for the slats
2- 2" x 3" @ 36-3/4"  sides of the frame *(left over from the two first cuts)
1- 1" x 3" @ 33-3/4"  middle support *(use leftover 1" x  3" from front slats)
3- 1" x 2" @ 62" Front slats
2- 2" x 2" @ 62" Front slats
7- 1" x 3" @ 62" Front slats
4- 2" x 4" @ 62" Front slats
2- 2" x 4" @ 23" Legs

Order of slats
1x2 (this is the only slat that will be screwed in from the back and into the 1" side).
1x3
2x4
1x3
2x2
1x3
1x2
2x4
1x3
2x2
1x2
1x3
2x4
1x3
2x4
1x3

You should have a total of 16 slats all together

This is what we did.  I sanded every single board prior to putting it together to make it easier because you will have lots of height variation.  I used 60 grit, followed by 220 grit to give it a very smooth finish.

First step is to build your frame with the 2" x 3" studs.  Predrill your wholes for the screws and countersink them from the out side and use wood filler.

Next we started screwing in the slats from top to bottom.  The first slat (1" x 2") is flushed even with the frame.  We attached all the slats by screwing them in from the back of the frame countersinking in the screws as we went along so that we didn't leave any scratches on the walls.  I would advise you  to put your middle support on first I don't know why we skipped this step and did it later.

 

We also ended up turning the headboard upside down because the first slat gave it a sturdy base to work on.

 This is what I mean by we screwed the slats in from the back of the frame countersinking the wholes as we went along. 

And that's it, because we attached the legs after we stained the headboard.  I forgot to throw pics of that part. Sorry, I'm new at this. As for the stain we used one coat of natural oxidizing stain.  The stain gives it a weathered look.  But because my stain was mixed weeks prior to making the headboard it had already created rust from the steel wool which resulted in some reddish tones around the headboard which I personally didn't like.  I wiped the headboard down with a couple of damp cloths to remove most of the rust but I still don't like the color.

You can see some of the color variations here.

You can see more pictures of our headboard in this post.

Cost of making this headboard
$32.83  Lumber
$8.47 pack of 2-1/2" screws
Grand total of $41.30 plus tax @ $2.48 equals a whopping  $43.78
Everything else we already owned.  Our inspiration bed cost $899 plus tax, delivery, shipping and handling puts it over $1,000 ouch.

This is what I would do differently if I were to make this headboard again.  First I would add to the frame the length of the legs at the very beginning.  I would also replace the top 2x3 frame piece and the first 1x2 slat with a simple 1x4 to keep the look more clean even though you really can't see it from where your standing.  I would not make my stain weeks before to prevent all the reddish tones on my headboard from the rust of the steel wool.

Over all the bed was easy to make, super inexpensive, and imperfections and all we love it.  There you have it my not so fancy tutorial.  I hope you can understand it well enough to be able to make your own headboard.

West Elm Stria bed Headboard Inspiration

 I fell in love with the Stria Bed from West Elm but it was definitely well over our budget.  So, I thought to myself we could build it!  I showed the bed to my hubby and he really liked it and was on board to build it with me.  So I sketched it up, came up with a list of wood and sizes that we needed them cut up to and off to the Hardware store we went.  The first picture below is the official bed from West Elm not mine.

We only made the headboard, not the bed frame, but who knows? maybe in the future (hint, hint babe ;-).   And here is our headboard.

 

Here's the bummer I love the headboard, but I don't love how the stain came out.  It's close to the stain from the original one but I don't know, I just don't like it.  I haven't sealed it yet because I'm still thinking on whether or not I should change the stain color.  I don't know what to do.  Should I keep the stain the way it is or add another coat of the oxidizing stain treatment or maybe a different stain or paint or should I just keep it the way it is and seal it already? Or, or, or, or....  Let's see what I end up doing.