Bedroom Makeover: The Bed

Initially, I wanted to wait for the room to be finished before I did this reveal.  I wanted the pictures to show the bed in the bedroom, dressed all pretty with the bedding I have planned.  But honestly... it will still be a while before it's all finished.  Besides, it's just not fair.  I showed my little desk redo, I need to show the bed.  It's THE bed.  The one my husband made from scratch, with his bare hands.  The whole reason for a bedroom redo in the first place.  So let's do this already...

The DIY is rather straight forward. 

1.  Marry a handsome, dreamboat of a man who also happens to have mad skillz. 

2.  Have him make a bed.  

Here's what he started with.  While this is the first picture we have of the wood, it's already been sanded smooth here.  The wood is walnut FYI.  It's not cheap and it's not something you can get at your local Home Depot/Lowes (I didn't know that).  When using a nice hardwood the adage measure twice, cut once really comes into play.  

Being in the military my husband has access to a woodshop on one of the bases.  He couldn't have made this bed without some serious woodworking tools.  Although he also did a fair amount of bed making in our garage.  Here are pics of the headboard, frame and the legs.  Yes homeboy even turned his own legs!  The headboard and frame are glued together--later reinforced with hardware.

Easily the most difficult part of making the bed was getting the finish right.  This is really tricky business, but he handled it like a boss.  He spent as much time finishing as he did actually making the bed.  For anyone interested he used Waterlox satin.   

Finished!  

I think it looks amazing and I LOVE it.
And I love that my husband made it.
And I love my husband.
And so we've come full circle.

The End.  

Some things to note:  1) The pictures aren't that great.  The pictures in the shop are all iphone pics, and the final bed pics are in our front living room with bad lighting.  Sorry.   2)  My husband's woodworking experince boils down to a middle school wood shop class.  He got a lot of pointers from the guy who runs the shop on base and his dad who is an avid wood worker.  That being said, he just did a lot of reading, planning and figuring this out himself.  3)  We did not design this bed!  It's a total rip-off from DWR's American Modern bed.  A really, really good rip off.  And since he was copying a bed from DWR, there were no pre-made plans.  He did it all himself, including tracking down some essential but hard-to-find hardware.