Headboard Almost Fail

Several months ago, I decided to refinish a piece of furniture. Pinterest folks made it look easy peasy. I figured it was a Saturday project. NASA was able to fly a rocket to the moon in a little over eight hours. Surely, I could complete some stripping and sanding in less time.

No one told me about the perils of furniture refinishing. Things can go wrong. Very wrong. So, sit back and listen to the story of the furniture update that almost wasn't.

Back in the day when the hubs and I slept in a queen-sized bed with two little dogs hogging the covers, we had a set I bought as our first nice furniture. The headboard had a leather insert. It was more than fine.

Fast forward to a king-sized bed and a different house and a guest room that needed some polish. I wanted my overnight guests to feel loved due to the comfy, pretty surroundings.

The bed was in its twenties and looked that old. Twenty would be good for me, not so good for the bed.

It desperately needed a makeover. I found a few blogs on creating a raw wood look. Yessss. That's what I wanted. Did I have what it takes to get there?

The answer was almost a resounding NO.

I wanted to burn that headboard about a week into this project. You read that correctly. A week. The longest dang week of my life.

So, I'm going to tell you what I did that caused me so much grief. Learn from my mistakes, people.

Sit back, pour yourself a beverage, and delight in reading all the things you must not do if you tackle this project.

First, I decided to sand the original finish down to raw wood. I bought a small hand sander. This didn't work out for me because of the grooves and small spaces where the sander would not fit. Also, that medallion in the middle and the ones on the sides? What the heck does a person do with those to remove the varnish and stain? I later discovered that the medallions were not even made from wood.

It wasn't going well with the sanding, so I pivoted in my plan. I would use a chemical stripper. Because the headboard weighed the same as a small elephant, I had decided to do this inside. There. It made the husband so happy when I said I didn't have to move it to the garage.

This was the biggest mistake of all. I put down plastic tarp and bought Citri-Strip Stripping Gel. I snapped on my heavy duty gloves (feeling a little like Dexter--crazed and dangerous) and started to work.

Now, don't misunderstand me. Using Citri-Strip wasn't a bad idea. It works great if you leave it on for 24 hours so the chemical can work its magic. But you should do this process outside. Let me repeat this. DO THIS OUTSIDE.

After killing some brain cells and several pairs of plastic gloves, I had scrapped off most of the varnish-goo-abomination. The medallions were more like plastic molds than wood. The wood kept sweating off this goo for days.

In the end, the solution removed most of the varnish. It also left me with orange-colored wood and spots of stubborn varnish. I'd read about this situation from other DIY bloggers and didn't listen. Foolish me.

I went back to the sanding. Yes. I did. What else was I going to do? While sanding, I fantasied about the giant burn pile that this piece of ...wood would make.

Finally, I could get to the finishing touches. I rubbed in some wood oil because you have to condition raw wood. You can't simply leave it like that. I used a Howard Orange Oil product to condition it. Guess what? The wood smelled great but was still orange.

Last, I applied white wax. Whoa. It probably saved my sanity. This is what I wanted to begin with in this project. I applied three coats of white wax on all the wood parts. I used brown chalk paint on the medallions that were clearly not wood and called it done.

Oh, yeah. I also unscrewed the leather insert and covered it with drop cloth material.

I'm pretty happy with it now, but I'd never in a million years do this again. It's not like childbirth where you forget how you were cursing earlier. My advice? A faux paint treatment to mimic the raw wood look is the way to go on a headboard with grooves and carvings.