Paint Fumes & New Bedrooms

So I did it.  I finished my big project for the summer.  Yeah yeah yeah.  I know.  There are still 12 days (did you hear that?  Only 12!!!) left in the school year but you know me.  I got antsy.  I couldn't wait anymore.  So I did it.  I gave my kids big kid rooms.  And I have to say, I am so happy with how they turned out.  Here's how I finished my big summer project during a gross week in spring.

It all started with Ben.  I noticed that when he slept, his feet hung off the end of his little toddler bed.  And then I noticed that Abby had a hard time fitting into her bed with all of the stuff she likes to sleep with.  So I started thinking about sprucing up their bedrooms a little.  When we moved in, I set up their rooms with what we had and for whatever reason, I haven't done much to them since.  This is what their rooms looked like before:

It's not prison camp but it's nothing spectacular either.  I started looking at bedroom sets and about fell over dead when I saw the price.  $1500 for kids furniture?  Not in my house!  That's when Plan B popped into my head.  I'll find some old furniture and make it look new.  So the hunt began.  I stalked Craigslist and the Goodwill looking for just the right things.  Robbie went to the ends of the earth (really just as far as Puyallup) to pick things up from random people's houses.  But for a grand total of $125, we got two dressers and two beds (not the mattresses...don't worry, I didn't buy those from the Goodwill).  Look!

You can see her bed frame hiding behind the dresser.

And here's his bed.  I forgot to take the before picture of his dresser but you get the idea...old and beat up.

For a little over a week, my garage was turned into a little paint shop.  First I sanded everything and then I painted.  And painted and painted and painted.

At first, I couldn't figure out how to paint the beds.  Do I lay them down and paint one side at a time?  That seemed like it would take too long.  Hang them from the ceiling?  (That was Robbie's idea).  Seemed kind of risky.  After a day or two it dawned on me to just set them up.  Duuuuuhhhh.  Worked like a charm!

I had seen somewhere (and now I can't remember where) an idea to hang kids' art work.  My kids love to hang their own art on the wall and I would venture to guess have gone through about 30 miles of Scotch tape doing so.  This seemed like a much more reasonable solution: 

Finally, everything was painted and ready to go.  Thursday we had a shopping trip to get the finishing touches for the new bedrooms (you know, like the mattresses!)  That night while they were at my parents house, I put it all together.  Here's Abby's room.  Her duvet cover is back ordered, but it should get here sometime next week.

Looks good, right?

Now here is Ben's big boy pirate room:

And here are their little art hanger in action:

When they got home, they were very surprised and excited to get to bed right away.  Abby invited a few friends to join her:

And Ben just couldn't wait to go to sleep!

When I checked on them later that night, Ben was still falling off his bed

and Abby was still crowded.

Oh well, at least the rooms are cute!

While I was at it I decided to give myself a treat for my room.  I had taken a picture a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to frame so I found this at the Goodwill:

I took the picture out, painted it up....and wa la!

Finally, something hanging on our wall!

This project was fun and I learned a lot along the way.  Here are my top tips:

1. Paint one color at a time.  I spent a lot of time touching up splatters from going back and forth between black and white.

2. Get an electric sander.  I did...after I had sanded most of the furniture.  Believe me, it is way easier.

3. Gorilla Glue expands.  I had never used it before and thought it would be good to attach the clothes pins for the art hangers.  It worked.  A little too good.  It was a little too late when I noticed that the whole thing was glued to my dining room table.  Ooops.

4. If you decide to re purpose an old picture frame, be careful not to break the glass when you are taking it out because it turns out that a new piece of glass costs more than a new frame.  Who knew?

All in all, this was a fun project.  Robbie is worried about what I will do all summer now that I finished my project.  I'm sure I'll find something!