You ready for the finished product? Okay, but not yet.
I want to talk about staining.
First off, I’m not an expert on staining. I have stained a view things in my life and know a few things.
There are two kinds of stains: ones you leave on and allow to dry, and ones that you put on, let sit, then wipe off. (Look on the bottle of yours, so you know what kind yours is.)
After I got done with this project:
I fell in love with the rustic look and wanted to come up with a similar style when it comes to my sons bed. So I took the headboard and the platform bed and started with a dark stain, I believe it was Rust-oleum’s Kona, and stained the creases, seams, and knots.
Please note, I did not do any sanding yet.
After I let it sit overnight, I grabbed my hand sander and set to work.
I did a really thorough sanding with 60/80 grit. I mean, spend all the time you want on it! The point of this is to sand most of the dark stain off so that it’s just left in the seams and recessed areas.
This is the brand that I used, I got it from Lowes. I then later went and picked some up from Home Depot. I was able to strip off the stain as I had liked, and so, in my mind, I thought that it was the sand paper. (I needed more anyways.) Note: I went through 6-8 pages of 60/80 grit sand paper on this project. If you want it nice and smooth, especially if you didn’t get great wood, you’re going to want it.
I did not sand the back of the head board, that was just from pure lazy reasons.
After I got the headboard looking like I wanted it to, I went over it with 120 grit and 220 grit to make it nice and smooth. It’s a bed, you want it nice and smooth. After that,to get any loose sand left, I vacuumed it and wiped it down with a moist washcloth.
At this point, I was still worried that I didn’t get enough of the dark stain off and it wouldn’t look good, but you will soon see it turned out fabulous!
I then flipped the platform bed on it’s top and started staining it with this:
I stained the headboard. Then next day I flipped them both around and stained the top of the platform bed and a little bit of the back of the headboard.
I then used polyeurethane to protect it. Polyeurethane is one of those you want to put several coats on (like 3) so that it will be protected. I bought some that I only had to put one coat on and it covers like 3. (I did this because I’m both impatient and lazy.)
And here’s the end product:
Isn’t it beautiful! Just like I wanted it to look.
After I let it dry for another 24 hours, my husband and I carried them upstairs and hooked them together. There’s no instructions on exactly how to do this, so I pre-drilled the start of screws in the platform bed and used 3″ screws to hold it together.
I then put the slats on.
I used only 12 slats instead of the recommended 14. I think 12 was plenty.
I then put the mattress and linens on it to make it all pretty.
And look there’s Mr. Bear. My husband came home and criticized it for being so tall. The pillow could have easily fallen through the whole between the headboard and platform bed.
I then took it apart and trimmed about 8″ off each leg of the headboard. (Tip: Measure it from the bottom of the headboard, so that the legs are even in length.) I don’t have a picture of that one, yet, but I’m hoping to in the near future.
So wa-la! That’s the finished bed! I love it as much as I thought I would.
The other things I plan for this room is to paint, then build a night stand, bookshelf, and dresser. But that’s for another day, this took up most of my budget.
