Phillips Ponderings: Pinterest Project

A long time ago I pinned a head board that the blogger on Housetweaking made. I loved it and so did Joel. Well, from my employment I had some connections to get some reclaimed wood. The volunteer projectg manager was doing some deconstruction as well as working with us. Deconstructing means that they take apart house or buildings and try to reuse the materials they find. It isn't a full blown demolition. Well, he was able to get his hands on some planks of wood for us in order to make this pin a reality in our home. We probably got the wood from hims at the end of last summer or in the fall and were just now able to get to the project.

Joel had a random non-vacation days off. His rotation at Henry Ford ended on the 26th and his next rotation is at a different hospital system, which doesn't switch until the 1st of the month. Therefore, Joel got off on Friday and Monday and made things happen. (yep, we did a little potty training, there was a trip to the beach and the headboard was made.)

To begin with, we had to decide which boards to use and how long to cut them. (Joel was super excited about this project because it meant he could use his tools!) Our contact grabbed us a lot of wood, so we weren't going to use it all. (We have a couple more projects in minds and the rest can be kindling.) I measured our bed, so we knew we wanted to be about 64 inches long. We then took a look at the boards. We tried to go with ones that had some character--cool notches, knots, wood grain patterns, some even had some words on it (American Brass Detroit Mich), and one or two boards had flecks of copper or brass in it. We choose the boards and Joel got to work cutting

(These pictures are after staining the boards, but are close up to show you some of the cool things we wanted to capture on the boards)

TROIT MICH

See that small fleck there--it is either copper or brass in the wood

After cutting the boards, they needed to be sanded since we wanted to clean them up a bit and stain them. We tried to make sure we could see some of the letters on one of the boards still...Troit Mich, to represent our time spent in Detroit. (3-1-3 baby!). We had to run to Lowes to grab an attachement for the drill so we didn't have to sand the boards with sandpaper and muscle. Joel was excited to use another tool at this point.

Once Joel sanded the boards, I was standing by ready to accept them in order to start the staining process. While at Lowes, I picked out some stain. I was leaning towards a gray stain and Joel agreed. So, I headed there not sure what I would find. The first one I saw was weathered gray, but that looked a little dark. Lo and behold, a few more down was one called Driftwood. It was a light gray and it was prefect! Not just because of the color, but also the name. I knew it was meant to be. Joel loves the beach and driftwood. We have a driftwood log on our wall as an art piece. I did the staining of the boards and then an hour after I stained them, we sealed them with polyetherane.

It was late by the time we got done sealing them, so we headed to bed. The next day I had to work, but Joel did his magic and got the boards together. We used two smaller planks on the back to connect the boards. Another tool in action--the drill! Once he got the boards all connected, he attached two flush wall mounts on the back boards so we could hang it on the wall. (As advised by the blog on housetweaking.com)

That night we hung it on the wall. Joel was very good at measuring (it only took 4 extra holes) and the bed wall mounts slipped right in and it is very secure. I will admit that our room is not perfect for this board since there is really only one spot our bed can be positioned along with the rest of our furniture, so if the headboard looks off centered from the rest of the bed it is. We have a window on one side and the other side is our dresser, so we can't really move the bed over without it interfering with the drawer openings. It doesn't look as bad in the pictures since we pushed the bed over for the picture. Someday, we'll have a bigger master bedroom where the headboard and bed will align. :)