It’s finally up! It’s only taken four months but everything is where it’s supposed to be.
And I like it.
When we switched to a bigger bed, I wanted to keep the padded headboard because 1.) I liked it, 2.) it cost less money to reuse it and 3.) if I redid it, I might have been tempted to redo the paint, which would have lead to more and more and more projects. This would have caused MJ to roll his eyes.
So, in using the padded headboard, I needed to cover an extra 16 inches in width and, to balance things out, I need to add something to the height. After a lot of hemming and hawing, sketching and doodling, I came across a picture on the Centsational Girl blog of a model home she crashed and loved the basic shape of the headboard (well, really, I loved the whole house but I zeroed in on the bedroom set-ups.).
Clean and simple. That sealed it. I would just construct an edging to go around the existing headboard.
So, when my dad visited last week, he helped me pick up 2 – 1x10s for the side panels and a 1×6 for the top. Why 1x10s if I only have 16 inches to cover? Well my friends, a true 1×8 is not 1 inch by 8 inches. It’s more like 1×7.5 which is no good for this project. I chose 1x10s and then my dad ripped them (cut length-wise) with my table saw so they measured just over 8 inches a piece.
Using metal brackets, we attached the top piece to the two newly-sized side panels and filled in the gaps with wood filler.
After the filler dried and was sanded down, I primed the bare wood with a gray primer. It’s a really good idea when painting anything to use a primer but this is especially important when painting bare wood. The primer gives the top coat paint a better surface to grip which leads to better paint adhesion which leads to a better quality paint job and stronger painted surface. Gray primer is a good universal base coat for most colored paints and it will help reproduce the exact color you are wanting from your chosen paint.
I coated my primed wood with two even coats of a lovely deep brown color (Behr – Sweet Molassas in Satin) and let it dry completely.
Then we put it up. Done and done.
While quick and easy to remedy, this project stretched out for too long.
But it’s done and off the list.
If you need me, I’ll be in there.
Take care.
-amy c
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How did I make the padded headboard? Why did I need to fix it?
