Bed - before and after!

(nap time means craft time!)

In my ripe old age of 26, I've refurnished several pieces of furniture. A kitchen table, a side table, a few mirrors, etc... but i have always just painted them one color and wondered why they looked so plain! Well, I've figured it out! Say hello to GLAZING!

Back in February, I got this everyday run-of-the-mill brown headboard for FREE. My grandma bought a house that was fully furnished, and lucky for my sister and me, she shared her treasures with us! Well here it is, exactly as we found it.

Well, right away i knew the brown HAD TO GO! We were not living in the 80's. What to do with it though? paint it, of course! My husband got me a sander a while back, but a sander wasn't going to work with all of these edges, so I opted for some spray primer and spray paint. It didn't take me long to know I wanted it bright white!

Here's what I chose

This is the result after the primer and paint. lots better huh!!! I was a little nervous but knew for the first time I was deciding NOT to end it here! I was reading allthingsthrifty.blogspot.com and saw glazing and knew I HAD to do it. That headboard needed brought back to life!

I headed straight to Home Depot knowing exactly what I needed- glaze tinted with black paint. Well much to my unpleasant surprise, they WILL NOT tint it for you. You have to do it yourself. I left with a pint of glaze, a sample of black paint, a stir stick, and nervousness mixed with excitement!

To mix it yourself you need:

1 part paint to 4 parts glaze

I used 1/4 cup paint to 1 cup glaze, but then added a little more paint because I wanted it EXTRA dark.

I was a little nervous I would ruin it, but I'll be darned if it was going to stop me from tryin'!

I just used a paintbrush, and worked a section at a time brushing on the glaze/paint mixture, and rubbing if off. You'll probably need several small pieces of rags. I used parts of an old Jersey bed sheet we didn't use anymore, it worked great!

There are 2 steps to glazing:

1) brush on

2) wipe off

It's that easy! The result is splendid!

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This is my guestroom (It's a work in progress)

I'm so happy with how it turned out and now I am scavenging my house looking for things to glaze!

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The breakdown

Bed: FREE

Primer/paint: 7 dollars

Faux glaze: 13 dollars

black paint: 3 dollars

paintbrush: already had one

TOTAL: 23 dollars

AND I still have plenty of paint and glaze leftover for the next project (stay tuned for that!)

I don't think I could EVER find a pre-painted headboard that I loved for that price. Even if you had to buy a used for 10-20 bucks, it would still be cheaper, and in my opinion better because you get to choose your own colors!

Here's a how-to video that I made, in case you want to try your hand at glazing! It includes some good tips! (Please don't look at my garage! That's a different project for a different day!)