Thursday, September 4, 2014

An Antique Bed Makeover

Months ago I shared that I was preparing to paint our old antique bed..... and then never shared another thing about it!


We had this lovely old waterfall style bed that we loved, but it was looking kind of tired, and had some veneer damage.  In the condition it was in, it's value was largely sentimental, so refinishing didn't make sense. Besides, the bed lives in our beach cottage, and we were ready to lighten things up a bit with pretty paint!



The bed was maple, maple veneer, and paper veneer. I loved the chunky bedposts, and I love that it has a foot board. I really like having a foot board -- it helps keep the blankets from sliding off the end of the bed!


In my inspiration post, I shared these pretty painted beds from Maine Cottage. While I adore the bright yellow and the vibrant pink, I knew my husband would want something a bit more classic.



We decided to paint the bed a deep navy, with aquamarine undertones. The view of the sea from the bedroom window was the inspiration for the color choice.


The bedding, found on clearance from Country Curtains, pulls together the antique red velvet chairs we inherited from my husband's mother last year, the navy painted bed, navy striped curtains (a thrift store find), and the vintage yellow throw. We have learned that the sandy beach environment is very hard on textiles, so I was thrilled to find inexpensive bedding!


We're pretty happy with how the bed turned out!


I pulled the little red table from another bedroom, and the Layla Grace knock-off starburst mirror was made from recycled magazines! I shared the tutorial in this post.


Later in the year, when the dune grass has turned yellow, our beach path will be lined with little red clovers, and this red yellow and blue color scheme feels like of continuation of the view of sea and sky and flora.


This bed was part of a set, so expect to see the other painted pieces in a future post (but don't expect it too soon, because we really need to get in some beach time in these last few days of summer)!