Make Do or Do Without

Like I said the other day, I'm going to be featuring some of the projects I did in redecorating my oldest girls' room this week. Here was the big reveal.

As we were seriously thinking about redoing Cheyenne and Natalie's room, their biggest concern was getting rid of the queen size bed that they were sharing.  Apparently someone hogs the covers, and someone won't stay on her side of the bed, and someone never takes their turn making the bed, etc.  But they didn't want bunkbeds again, the reason they got the queen bed to begin with.  So I came up with the idea of switching beds with Chloe and Maddie, because half the time Chloe ends up in Maddie's bed anyway. They have bunkbeds, but we could unbunk them and use them as singles.  C & N were a little leery since the beds weren't in the greatest shape.  (Maddie has been a chewer, biter, gnawer, since she was a baby.  Seriously, when she was still in her crib, I'd come to get her up from her nap and she'd have paint flakes or even wood splinters around her mouth.  I tried everything to get her to stop, thought it was just a teething thing, painted the nasty fingernail polish stuff that's supposed to help nail biting - she just started in a new spot, turned the bed around thinking maybe it was just habit in that spot, nothing helped!  So when they moved into toddler beds I was happy that at least the really bad railing was gone now and the bed looked decent again.  I thought she grew out of it.  Nope, she chewed all over the rest of the bed.  Then a few years later, yeah fresh clean bunkbeds, no more teeth marks.  Yup, she chewed the heck out of those, too.  The entire railing was terrible, but that was coming off, however the ends were a mess, too.)

I convinced them that I could fill in the teeth marks and we could paint them shiny black.  Agreed!  Then the second hurdle was when I told them that if they took those beds, they had to use the quilts on Chloe and Maddie's beds, too.  They were only like 6 mo. old, Potter Barn (from DownEast Home) and weren't cheap.  That was a little more of a challenge, Natalie was extremely adamant on NO PINK!  I told them they could both use the lime green side and only the stitching was pink, not that noticeable.  Finally, finally, she agreed.

Cheyenne's biggest want/request for her room was turquoise, turquoise, and turquoise!  She very badly wanted turquoise walls.  I tried to get her go a lighter shade, but no, that was not turquoise. Natalie didn't want turquoise walls, I didn't really want that dark of walls either.  So again, more smooth talking by me, showing them pictures on the internet, etc., they finally agreed on a cool gray neutral color. My awesome mom came and helped, and Cheyenne and Natalie helped, too, and in a day we covered up the beautiful sunflowers, and their room looked . . . like a prison cell - in Bill's words. :) I assured all of them when we were done it would be awesome!

Just to preserve my awesome creativeness.  That was hand stamped around the entire room. :)

Then after several days, okay, a week or so, the beds were finally done.  Now that was a job!  We had to fill in all the holes from the ladder and railings and especially the teeth marks and put plugs in and fill where the two beds joined together.  Of course we sanded and washed everything down, too.  Then I started spraying.  I decided to try spray painting as everyone online said it's so easy.  It was fairly easy, but here's a few pointers I discovered.
1.  It takes WAY more paint than you think.  Apparently those cans don't hold much paint.  I think it was 3 or 4 cans of primer and 10 cans of black paint (and a couple trips to town to buy more paint.)
2.  It was much easier to spray things when they were standing up than laying down.  Both sets of  headboards and footboards, I laid down on a sheet in the garage and sprayed.  After waiting the allotted time on the instructions and sometimes even overnight, I flipped them over, sprayed the other sides, and when I pulled it up, a good chunk of paint came off on the plastic.  I was so mad!!!  That meant sanding, wiping down, redoing it in several places.  Just don't look to closely because I got tired and some spots still show. :)  However, when I sprayed the long, bottom-of-the-bed railing part, I stood it up against the wall.  I did have a little running if I wasn't careful, but that was easy enough to sand off.  I still had it stick to the plastic a little, but it was a very small edge, very easily fixed.
3.  Don't paint in the garage, or outside, when the cotton trees are shedding their cotton (yah, all summer.)  There was no way to keep that stuff out of the dang paint.
4.  Not only did it take more paint, but it took more time than I anticipated.  So make sure you really read the instructions (before you start) and plan ahead.
5.  I should have put a varnish or something on top. I didn't think these big girls would be too rough on beds, and I was sick of painting and wanted this project done, so I didn't use anything.  They've already dinged them in a couple of places.

Overall though, I was really happy with the way they turned out.  Completely different than the "little girl" white bunkbeds they used to be.  However, the black bars on the beds didn't help with Bill's impression that it looks like a prison in there, especially when Cheyenne's back in her cubby hole here. :)

As we were trying to keep costs down and making do, I also painted a mirror that the girls had inherited from a cousin.  It had no hanging mechanism on the back, so we never got around to hanging it before.  Now spruced up with some black paint and using the velcro Command strips (AWESOME!) it's a great addition.  As I mentioned in the first post, these curtains were not quite floor length, but just didn't work with Cheyenne's bed in the way.  Since they were still the perfect colors, I just cut off about 3 or 4' off of them and rehemmed them.  Cheyenne is still trying to come up with some fabulous idea for the extra material - pillows or even a skirt or something.

So as Nate Burkus always says on his show, when you want a change, shop your house.  See what you can use from another room or in a different way.  It made our redo a WHOLE lot cheaper, and Bill a whole lot happier.

Partying with:
BlueCricketDesign
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SewMuchAdo
TheSasseLife
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HouseOfHepworths
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I'm entered in the 31 Days of Spray Paint.  Crossing my fingers!!

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