French Farmhouse Daybed & How Morro Bay Cabinets saved my butt!

First & foremost I have to give a HUGE thank you to Steve at Morro Bay Cabinets in Paso Robles, CA. I realized when I started working on this bed, that I was missing the entire front leg piece on one side, did I mention that I HAD to have this bed finished by the next morning to fill the huge empty space in my boutique? It was about 5:00 pm when I drove as fast as I could over to their show room hoping I could get someone to help me with a replacement. I remembered that they had done some work for my mom years ago & it came out beautifully. Not only do they not do this kind of work, (should've been obvious by the name!) but they close at 4:00! Luckily I caught Steve on his way out the door, & explained what I needed, (it probably helped that he was a friend if a friend too). He was able to find a scrap piece of wood that he cut to match the bed frame EXACTLY! He even went as far as filling the screw holes with wood putty for me! And the whole time he worked on it he told me I could go check out their showroom (which is awesome by the way). In the less than ten minutes it took him to do this for me I had already designed my dream kitchen. When I asked what I owed him he just smiled & said "Nothin." Where else can you get service like that?!!! I wasn't even a paying customer & he went out of his way to help me! I guess that's one of the many reasons they've been in business since 1974, along with the fact that they do beautiful work. So, thank you Steve! You saved my butt & I really wouldn't have been able to get this done without you!

ON TO THE DAYBED........

A while back I bought a trundle for my for daughter's daybed on Craigslist. The guy selling it gave me a pretty good price, there was one catch - it came with a hideous 1980's oak & brass daybed frame. He said he would not break up the set. So I became the owner of this shabby 80's mess. I took a before pic but I can't find it anywhere, allthough the above daybed is pretty rough lookin, it's nowhere compared to mine & doesn't include the (fake I might add) brass trim. But it will have to serve as my "before" on this one.

I started by pulling the plastic brass trim out of the grooves that ran across the tops & fronts of the two side pieces of the frame. Once that was done the bed had really nothing to it, it was a very simple design & the frame was pretty open. It definitely needed something to give it some personality.

 I decided to go with a layered dry brush technique I've been using a lot lately. I gave the original finish a light sanding then brushed my first coat of gray (I used the darker of the two I had on hand but you could definitely do it the other way around) on very haphazardly so that the coverage was inconsistent & some of the oak still showed through. After that had dried completely I applied the second coat (using the lighter shade of gray) in the same manner, focusing on covering the areas where the oak showed through. The final coat was a dry brush of Valspar's Asphaltum glaze which I worked in to the paint using my chip brush. It all got sealed up with a couple coats of Polycrylic.

 Even with the antiqued gray finish I still felt like it needed something so I picked up a two pack of these carved wood medallions of at Lowes for around five or six bucks. I used some Gorilla Glue (only a few dots) & a nail in the center of the flower to affix them to the bed & then brushed a light silver over them so they stood out a little.

I tried to get a closer shot of the finish here but it didn't come out so great. Also, notice the two grooves that formerly held the plastic brass racing stripes....a big improvement once it was removed.

 This chair was done using the same technique & colors as the French Farmhouse daybed but I opted to let a little of the original white finish show through , this should give you a little better idea of how the daybed finish came out.



And here it is all staged in my boutique with some of the grainsack pillows I also made. Im sure it would look even better with a mattress, a crisp white duvet cover & some pillows (maybe grainsack style?). Unfortunately it's no longer available, it actually sold a week or two after I put it in my space. If you like this finish I currently have an antique vanity that was done with the same colors & crystal knobs, post on that coming soon!