Because the current projects that I am working on are taking so long, I thought I would give a little sneak peak of what is to come… Yes it involves painting our bed in the master bedroom. Yikes! When we purchased this bed a year ago, the plan was to give it a new finish. There were so many things that needed attention around here after moving in that I put this project off to be done another day and made the finish work as it was…

My future plan included a cool pallet of grays, so I used our existing white bed linens and hand-dyed some linen fabric that I bought at Ikea to a nice gray color and made a skirted duvet out of it. I installed draperies, also of a similar gray taffeta which worked well with the hand died linen fabric, giving me a pallet of browns and grays until the next phase which will bring in more gray and less brown. Unfortunately, my dying process was not colorfast and the my hand-dyed linen has faded to a pinky brown color, which you can see here. Recently, I found a beautiful gray linen fabric at a great price, so I am redoing the duvet in this new fabric and the faded linen will be re-purposed in another area of the house. This brings me to the recently finish project of painting the bed…

I started by painting it with Bher’s matte paint and primer in one product which I had color matched to Martha Stewart’s Cement Gray. I decided to try this product because the paint department at Home Depot has continued to recommend it for painting wood work. I like it and it goes on easily with great coverage, but it doesn’t have the chalky matte finish that my favorite paint recipe does. How ever, after adding the Swedish wax finish it has a very professional look to it.

As you can see, I taped off the leather inserts and went to town…

I painted the headboard first…

And then the foot board and rails. As I was finishing with the foot board, I discovered that the panels were removable and there was no need to tape off the leather! Oh well, I do this kind of thing a lot when I get wrapped up in getting a project done. I just let logic go out the window!

I removed the panels, making the waxing process much easier.

I used a sanding block and distressed the edges.

I then applied the wax according to the directions found here and here.

After I finished with the waxing process, I decided to cover the leather panels with some of the left over, un-dyed, natural linen that I found at Ikea. I do wish that Ikea stilled carried this linen but they don’t. It was such a wonderful price, only $5.99 a yard and even less if you bought the whole bolt.

So, here it is again, with the new finish and natural lined inserts. You can see the room is not finished and put together yet, but the new color direction is taking shape. You can also see Little Elk in the lower left hand corner and a pair of cowboy boots on the right. No room in our home will be right if these elements don’t rest nicely in the plan! Well, this is it for now. I will continue working and keep you posted.

 

XO,

Kristie

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Miss Mustard Seed

French Country Cottage

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House in the Roses