Pinterest Challenge- Chalkboard Globe

We have visitors this weekend and somehow my suggestion of turning the weekend into a nursery painting party didn't appeal to them.  Oh well.  In spite of that lack of enthusiasm I still plan on completing a project that I mentioned a couple of days ago...chalkboard painting a globe that I found at a garage sale for $1.  (Globe seen in this post.)

via Pinterest

The Young House Love blog (a long with a few other blogs) came up with the idea to complete a project that you have pinned on your Pinterest board instead of just dreaming about them.  They've come up with a challenge that I hope to meet head on.  My "Around the Craft Room" board is here and you can see that I have a number of projects that I would like to complete (or at least start).

You can see my other boards here.  I even started a board of my Modern Mantle projects.  You can follow any or all of my boards when you sign up for free with Pinterest.

Big Boy Bed!

I had been looking for a vintage wood headboard at garage sales all summer long and finally snagged a fantastic deal about a month ago.  I purchased a headboard and footboard for $1.  The only problem was that no support rails were included.  We stopped at a local Thrift Store a couple of days ago and found the needed rails for $10.  Hence, the late completion date even though my son's room has been painted for a month now.

My $1 bed find!

Steps to refinishing our vintage wood bed:

1. Find a bed (seemed like a long process for me, but paid off in cheapness!)
2. Sand bed to pull of smooth stain/varnish finish and make a decent surface to paint.
3. Prime bed.
4. Paint bed (this step will most likely need to occur more than once).
5. Put it all together!

Paint/Primer Application

Logan (sans shirt) likes to help!

Step 5 took us the longest amount of time after we realized that our existing bed rails would not work and that we needed to buy a different kind.  Then, we realized that our box spring was a little too wide.  Argh, but we decided to do without the box spring anyway so that the bed wouldn't be too high.  My husband made wood slat supports to act as the platform for the mattress and they fit perfectly in the rails.  Until...my husband testing it by sitting on the bed and the rails spread a bit, thereby dropping the newly created slats.  At that point he created additional support by using a threaded rod to pin the rails together at their midpoint.  We've got some highbrow engineering going on in this bed!

Everything now works perfectly and Logan spent an excited night barely sleeping on his big boy bed.

Logan's Bedroom- It's Finished

We were working hard to complete Phase 1 of my son's bedroom update before our Family Reunion during July 4th.  Everything was ready for the packed house, except for Logan's bed, we just completed that last night.  So, now I can share the images with you!

My goal was to paint over the pink walls (shown below) that were left over from the previous owner and create a room that my son could grow into and not grow out of.  I chose a medium brown tone that I knew could play up with brightly colored accessories.

Before Photo

I had used these book illustrations in Logan's old nursery and decided to add to them to create a vintage feel over this new bed.  The aluminum picture frames were, also, a holdover from the old nursery (at the old house).

The first thing I did after deciding on the wall color was picking cushions for the bench over the mechanical duct.  I found these great outdoor cushions at Walmart and bought three.  When I took them home I realized that I had about 6 inches of extra cushion, so I jumped on the sewing machine and trimmed one of them down.  I used that one in the middle section to make everything symmetrical and I don't think it's noticeable.  These cushions created my color scheme for the rest of the room as I finished picking accessories and curtains.

I bought the "Go Jump in the Lake" print/distressed board from an online Etsy retailer called Go Jump in the Lake.  We live right by Lake Michigan and I thought the slogan was appropriate.

I found this metal and wood children's desk at the Bethesda Resale Shop, locally, for $3 and we already had the small chair.  I have ideas about painting the globe with chalkboard paint, similar to here.

You can see a close-up shot of the paper lanterns (from Logan's 1st Birthday party here) and the model airplane (from his old nursery here).

My favorite thing about this room was being able to use so many items from the old room and changing everything up with pops of color.  My total expenses for the room ended up being around $150 and that's not too shabby.