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Welcome back! Today’s culture post is brought to you by an extreme disgust with how boring our bedroom(s) looked, and our inability to stand it any longer!
Our house has three bedrooms – the master is downstairs, & there’s two spare bedrooms upstairs. Prior to finishing our master bedroom, we slept in one of the spare bedrooms. The bedroom has a layout that restricts movement of the bed; the only sensible positioning is with the head of the bed against the wall, & leaving a small amount of space on either side of it. Otherwise, you’re either blocking the bedroom door, or the closet door, and neither option is obviously a good one.
The small spaces on either side of the bed didn’t allow for an end table, so our phones would charge on the floor most nights. This would often result in me stumbling around half asleep at 6 AM, searching through pillows and blankets and dogs for my phone in order to turn the alarm off. I would utilize the window ledge as a place to set a cup down, which was somewhat irritating because you couldn’t reach the ledge from the bed. Adding to our disgust was the areas of paint that had chipped off on the wall itself. We finally couldn’t stand it anymore and set out to clean the ever-living shit out of it.
Ryan TSPed the walls to get rid of however many years of buildup was on them. Ryan was the one who introduced me to TSP, and I have been forever thankful. Prior to him, I would just throw paint on the walls and call it a day. TSP removes every last bit of gross from your walls better than any other cleaner, and literally leaves the wall a different shade when you’re done. It’s actually horrifying to see the color your walls used to be once you’re done cleaning them.
Having two dogs that shed (especially when they’re losing their winter coats) means we have to accept that the majority of our things will contain their hair, but prior to any painting process, we make sure it doesn’t get mixed in. We vacuumed the room several times. We then painted all the walls to liven up the color (it was a weird beige color that over time became grungy looking). We went to Sherwin Williams for the paint & chose “Greek Villa“.
There were no headboards attached to any of our beds originally, so we decided to make our own. We decided to screw it directly into the wall because this way it wouldn’t move, and Ryan planned to install a ledge on either side so we would finally have a surface next to the bed to set our phones/drinks down on. We took a trip to Lowe’s to figure out what we wanted to use as the material for the headboard. I had a slight obsession with distressed wood, and we found wall planks in a color that we both liked. This is what usually happens in our home improvement projects – Ryan figures out how to make it happen, and I pick the colors. Considering I’m the least patient with the actual construction of most things and Ryan hates color coordination, this works out well.
We installed two furring strips, each running horizontally across the wall, serving as an anchor for the planks. One was screwed into the top part of where the headboard would start, and one on the bottom where it would end. This would save us from smashing each board directly into the wall, as it would lift each plank off the wall about an inch or so, and it would assist us with keeping the boards even all the way across. I wanted the planks to run vertically, but you can put them in a horizontal pattern if you prefer. I had chosen the “denim” colored blanks, because I like to keep bedrooms decorated mostly with blues and whites. I think blue is supposed to promote relaxation and restful sleep, and we both need all the help we can get in that area.
Ryan cut wood for the two ledges that would go on either side of the bed, and painted them with a blue wood stain. I thought the pattern that emerged after the first coat was pretty dope, so we screwed them in after they dried. With wood stains, you can do multiple coats if you want to intensify it – each coat will deepen the color.
I honestly didn’t realize how amazing this was going to look until we finished it. To say that this dressed up the bedroom is a massive understatement.
if you want to get really crazy, you can install an LED light strip around the border of the headboard like we did – but you don’t have to. This was done solely because I’m blind, and Ryan likes to keep our house about as lit up as a dungeon would be.
It does look like a party in the bedroom, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Materials List & Pricing – click the material & it will show you where to buy it!
– TSP Heavy Duty Cleaner (1) at $4.24
– furring strips (2) at $2.28 each
– distressed wood planks in “denim” (2) boxes $22.00 each
*We bought the light strip at Walmart for about $8.00.
