Upcycled Vintage Maple Bed

Hello friends!  Can you believe it’s already October?!  Is it starting to feel like fall where you live?  We’re still having those warm California days here in SoCal however we are starting to have chili evenings which I am loving!  Fall is one of my favorite seasons. 🙂

In one of my earliest posts I discussed free finds and how much I love them!  Anytime I see something on the side of the road that has DIY potential I have to pick it up.  It’s a problem, uh I mean, passion!

The other week I found this AMAZING vintage, maple, four post bed, complete with adorable acorn finials.  So in love.  

There’s this one magical alley where I have found quite a few treasures.  The problem is we have a small one bedroom apartment and a carport – not really ideal for all my free finds.  Thankfully our lovely friends, Mike and Aimee, let us store these treasures in their garage until I end up doing something with them!  And the alley just happens to be right by their place.  Convenient huh? ;)

Upon further examination of the bed I noticed that the headboard had a crack going down the middle…fixable right?

My husband stuck wood glue in the crack and let it dry for a few hours.  Once dried, he applied wood filler over the crack, let that dry and then sanded it down.  You honestly have no idea a crack was ever there!

To be honest, I wasn’t sure about painting the bed as it is a gorgeous vintage bed but with the crack going down the headboard it seemed to be my only option.

There are a few chalk paint options out there.  After some debate between Valspar Chalky Finish Paint, Annie Sloan and DIY Chalk Paint, I decided to go with Annie Sloan French Linen.  I had never used Valspar Chalky Paint but it’s slightly cheaper than Annie Sloan (by $10 bucks) so I was contemplating this paint.  However, after reading a couple reviews online I decided to stick with Annie Sloan.  I’ve also made my own chalk paint in the past but I kept on getting “chalky” pieces while I painted so I knew I didn’t want to deal with that.

Annie Sloan paint is a little on the pricey side at $38.95/quart but I’ve used it before and love the look and feel of it.  I would suggest in investing in the Annie Sloan paint brushes as well.  I used what I had on hand to keep my costs down but I kept having to pick out bristles from my painting.  No fun.

After letting the paint dry I sanded down parts of the bed frame to give it a little more rustic feel and dimension.

Once that was done, I wiped down the frame to remove any dust and then began waxing the bed.  I used a paint brush to slather on the wax and then wiped it off with a t-shirt.  Make sure you use a lint free rag, otherwise the lint will become part of your project!  I used my own wax that I had on hand (Minwax).  That probably goes against everything Annie Sloan but I’m a girl on a budget and I’ve used this wax for other projects and never seem to have issues.  I like saving money when I can. 🙂

The bed looks absolutely beautiful.  

I’m kind of obsessed with this color. 

It would look perfect in a guest bedroom or some lucky girl’s room.

Happy fall everyone!  I hope you enjoy your weekend.  Now on to my next project…

xo, Jenneke Rose