Marrying An Old Bachelor...

"Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture."- H.J Brown Jr

I do own a lot of second hand furniture. On-line sites such as KIJIJI have afforded me a beautiful bed frame and headboard for my bedroom, while solving the dilemma of my queen sized box spring not fitting up my middle aged staircase. I did sleep on the mattress on the floor until I could find an affordable box-spring-free bed that suited my taste at a price that was right. My dining room table is second hand as are my chairs and my buffet and hutch. They have all been painted, stained and sanded within an inch of their lives but I would not have been able to afford the look I wanted had I not gone all second hand and all do-it-yourself-er on them.

When I moved into my house, the previous owners left a ton of stuff behind ( le sigh...). There were dozens of quarter-full paint cans that were colors that hadn't been present on the walls in years. There was wood, old blinds, a work bench and a half-ton truck worth of junk to go to the dumpster (anyone have a truck I can borrow??). The other day I was down there contemplating what I could squeeze into my little hatch-back VW when I saw three decent sized pine boards. I took them upstairs, only to deduce they were the perfect size boards to make a headboard for a double bed! Hallelujah! One less thing to drag to the dump and I conveniently have two double beds severely lacking in the head-board department! So here is what I did...

I drove to Home Depot and went straight to my favorite paint expert (we are actually on a first name basis now!). I bought three samples (the ones you would buy to test colors on a wall), at three bucks a piece and in gradient colors of purple. I went to the hardware section and bought three packages of 3m Command Strips that hold up to 9 lbs. I draped my table in garbage bags and propped the wood on cans of stewed tomatoes (they were on sale...I have too many to know what to do with!). Using a  foam trim roller I painted each board one of the gradient colors with two coats of paint. When they were dry I attached the command strips and secured them over the bed in one of my spare bedrooms. The result was a headboard spot on with the ombre' trend that is sweeping the nation. With total cost of twelve dollars and total time spent of about one hour including drive and shopping time. Bam! Check it out below and happy DIY-ing!
-m