The Big Reveal

While I still have a few art pieces I want to finish and hang up, the girls room is finished. Thanks to Ana White we were able to build beds and a book shelf for the girls. We used a combination of the Simple Bed plan and the Twin Farmhouse Bed plan for Little Bo Peep's bed and the Trundle Bed plan for Goldilock's bed. The 6 Cube Bookshelf plan is what we used and modified for the bookshelf.

Here is the finished product.

I did more than my fair share of research of how to prepare, paint and seal the furniture but I will spare you the abundance of information. Instead here is a quick overview and then more detailed photos.

Furniture: 

• Sanding (before assembling furniture!) medium grit (60-80), fine grit (120), and finally very fine grit (220). Wipe down with a microfiber cloth in between sanding.
• Minwax Clear Sanding Sealer (after assembly)- 1 coat 
• Zinsser Primecoat 2 primer and sealer- 1 coat
• Glidden Cinnamon Spice (GLN03) satin finish- 1 coat
• Rub wax (candle sticks work best I hear) along edges where you will later scrape and sand off the paint down to the wax and have magically distressed furniture. This is where I failed myself. I had read about this process years ago and wanted to just have a nice coat of brown paint coming through instead of using acrylic paint on top of my lovely green paint. But alas I forgot the wax step so later on I had to use the acrylic paint after all. :(
• Glidden New Grass Green (GLG04) satin finish- 3 coats
• Distress- rub sand paper (I used fine or very fine grit sandpaper) along edges where over time furniture would be bumped. I wanted to distress the furniture because with small children they would do it for me and I didn't want to cry over "messed up" furniture. This is where I realized I had missed the wax step. When I started sanding it went right down to the wood sealer. Had I remembered the wax I would have just scraped the wax off with scrapers or sandpaper.
• Amsterdam Standard Series Acrylic Burnt Umber- If you chose to use acrylic paint on top of your final color or you are forced to due to baby brain use small paint brushes, q-tips and paper towel to rub and apply the paint to the sanded down areas.
• Minwax water based Polycrylic Clear Gloss- 2 coats This will give your furniture a nice finished glossy look. If I hadn't been going crazy with all three children in one room, if I hadn't been suffering from cabin fever, if I hadn't been 7 months pregnant and just wanting to be done with the whole thing I may have done 4 coats. The more coats the shinier the finish.

Walls:

• Zinsser Primecoat 2 primer and sealer- 1 coat
• Wall color: Glidden Spring Bluebell (GLB22) satin finish- 2 coats
• Ceiling color: Glidden Summer Sandcastle (GLC06) flat finish- 2 coats
• Closet walls: Glidden Powder Pink (GLR 18) semigloss finish- 3 coats  Because we have a "family closet" in our laundry room we moved the girls dress up collection into their closet and wanted to make it special for them. 
• Base board and trim: I don't know if this is even available anymore Martha Stewart (Sears Brand) Sugar White (H25) semigloss finish- 2 coats  The BEST thing I have ever used for painting is the Wooster Shortcut 2" brush. It is ahh-maze-ing in corners and edges. *swoon*

Room Makeover Price:

• Paint and supplies $267.74 (this included paint for the walls)
• Wood $367.23
• Base board, shoe molding and trim for bookshelf $54.03 (we had some left over from our kitchen remodel so we only had to buy about 10' of base board!)
• Wainscoting $21.17 (the back of the bookshelf)
• Hardware $73.27 (nails, screws, wheels, pulls, anchors for the bookshelf, etc.)
• IKEA $267.04 (mattresses, mirrors and a few other small things)
• TOTAL $1050.48  

Yep! That's me, 6 months pregnant and cutting wood!

I *loved* the look of the Farmhouse Bed just not the height. I used the dimensions of the Simple Bed but the layout of the Farmhouse Bed

6 Cube Bookshelf x 2 see in the middle the two ends are glued and nailed together. I then covered it with the 1x2 and the front is seamless!

dang it all, I couldn't finish the top by myself. But you can see the middle blends right in with the rest of the front.

Ahh thanks Love for helping me finish the top! And would you just look at that wainscoting.

Minwax Sanding Sealer

Zinsser primer

Glidden Cinnamon Spice (GLN03) satin finish. Melt some chocolate, you know the kind from the bulk food store to dip pretzels in, that is the exact color of this paint when it is in the jar and wet. Then let that chocolate harden back up and that is exactly how this looks when it is dry! ***Don't forget the candle wax!***

Glidden New Grass Green (GLG04) satin finish. Isn't it so pretty?!

First coat

This is where I used the Amsterdam Standard Series Acrylic Burnt Umber

To distress the crooks and crannies I used: old flat head screw driver, bone folder and sand paper. Everywhere else I just used sandpaper.

More distressing with acrylic paint

They were SO excited to finally get to come in and poke around. We had tried to keep them out as much as possible to make it more special when they moved back into their room.

HOORAY for new beds!

The wainscoting, base board and trim really make this look like a built-in! Notice the trim on the side (it's on the other side too), since we live in an old house our walls are far from straight. When the shelf was placed against the wall there were HUGE gaps between the wall and shelf. After some shock and discussing we went back to the Orange and White Big Box Store to get some nice trim to match the crown molding on the underside of the top. mmmmm, all better!

We even added some trim around the cut out for the outlet.

My grandma passed these quilts down to me. I've been told they were made from clothes of my great-uncle, her brother-in-law. So precious.

If you are still here, thank you for looking through all our hard work. We are very proud of our project and pleased with the outcome! If you have ANY questions please ask. Good luck with your own project, and leave a link I would love to see your work!