Twin Victorian Beds Revived

I’m so proud of myself for getting some fabulous “BEFORE” pictures! Seriously though… I bought these Victorian twin beds in September for a client of mine… she knew I couldn’t get to them for a while and she patiently waited 3 months for them! These beauties are going to be for her two girls who share a room… Can you just imagine how awesome these are going to be? I can!

They are antique with beautiful detail, wood rails and just look at those curved footboards!

BEFORE

It may seem “crazy” to some of you to paint these, certainly they could be restored, but they really are going to be gorgeous once they are done!

Here is the headboard after two coats of a custom mix of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I mixed a ratio of 3:1 Pure White and Graphite to achieve this lovely soft gray color. I could have used Paris Grey, but it tends to pull to the purple side and I wanted to achieve more of a true Dove Grey color…

I did have weird bleed through spots after 2 coats, so rather than fight it I just removed the paint and sprayed the area with 3 coats of Zinsser spray primer (outside was a balmy 74 degrees). After the primer was dry I repainted the headboard, two coats, no bleed through.

The footboard had no issues, I just cleaned it really good with Formula 409 before I painted it with 2 coats of the custom Grey paint.

I painted the accent pieces in ASCP Graphite… doing this kind of detailed painting is very time consuming, keep that in mind if you are doing this yourself or paying someone to do this… but it is SOOOOO worth it! Look how the Graphite makes the details POP!

The final pictures are pretty crappy, which is embarrassing, but it was an overcast foggy day and I couldn’t setup outside and there just wasn’t enough indoor light! Anyway here is the finish product!

I distressed the beds using a combination of wet sponge and sandpaper, that way I could distress the majority of them inside and just a small amount needed to be hand sanded.

I used Briwax to wax the beds… it’s VERY smelly so I only use it outside, but it goes on beautifully and dries super fast. After I waxed it I buffed it with 0000 steel wool and then a final buff with a soft cloth.

The curved footboards are just incredible!

I added an initial for each of the girls on the top of the headboards..

To add the initials I used my Silhouette to cut out the letters in vinyl and then applied them to the wood once the base color was dry. I then painted two coats of Graphite over the entire piece and after the paint had dried I removed the vinyl letters. The letters came up easily and the lettering is very crisp and clean.

This was a fun project for me! I love the fact that these little girls will be getting wonderful beds as Christmas gifts. I can only hope that they will treasure them for a very long time!

On a totally random personal note: A couple of days ago my 19 year old daughter invited me to go with her to the Dave Matthews Band concert in Charlottesville this coming Friday… I love Dave Matthews but the fact that my daughter asked me to go with her was just such a sweet thing… I guess it means that she’s either 1. not too embarrassed to be seen in public with me, 2. still thinks I’m pretty cool or 3. she wanted me to buy the tickets ! Who knows, but I’m super excited to go and I know we will have a great time. I haven’t been to a concert in 5 years or more, boy tickets sure have gotten expensive!

Thanks for stopping by…

Until next time!

Linking up to these parties..
My Romantic Home, French Country Cottage, Miss Mustard Seed, Classy Clutter