A DIY project Johnna Thibodeaux would be proud of

I absolutely love DIY.  Moving into a new house has definitely enhanced that love and made it an obsession.  Pinterest.com has also reeled me in to the wonderfulness of doing things yourself.

I think I love DIY so much because I'm very cheap and love to be resourceful.  I keep a lot of things that I know I can use again, and I love giving older, unused things a new life.  Usually I don't have much reason or time for a big project, but now that summer school is out and I also need furniture for the house, my mom and I adventured with this challenge!

First, we took two beds from my grandparents' house that my mom and her sisters used when they were young.  The pictures will show only one of the beds, but we did both of them exactly the same.  This is the original headboard.

Second, we used a chemical called Zar Paint and Varnish remover to remove the varnish from the headboard.  Using a paintbrush, we painted the chemical all over the headboard, let it sit for about 10 minutes, and then used a scraping tool to scrape off all the varnish.  The result is the original wood.  We also removed the sliding doors to give the headboard a more open look.

Next, I simply primed the wood with Kiltz like you would when painting anything else.  I let it dry for abut 2 hours. 

 

Finally, I painted the headboard this light peach color!  It came out super adorable.  We redid the foot boards with the same process.  Natalie and I will both have one of these twin sized beds in our room.  It worked out that we had two of the same bed, since we will be sharing a room.

  

I'm super excited to put both of these in our room!  My mom and I also stained a kitchen table black that was once wood.  I didn't take picture of the step by step process but I will post a picture of the final product.  I look forward to endeavoring with other DIY projects, such as making hemp lantern lamps and anything else that sparks my interest! :)