The Message Board Bed Makeover Reveal

It has been incredibly busy over here at Haute House :) But I finally got around to finishing my first furniture makeover; what I call the Message Board Bed. I have to pat myself on the back for this one because I never thought I have it in me to do a furniture makeover. But I can do it, you certainly most definitely positively can too.

Let's recap.

Remember this oh-not-so-interesting dorm room bed?


It has been transformed to this:


Here is how I did it, step by step:

Step 1: Set-up your work area. By then, I had finished the footboard and was moving on to the side base boards.


Step 2: Sand your surface. For the footboard, I had done this manually with a regular sand paper (medium grit). But for the base boards and headboard I decided to do something different, per advice of hubby and used this varnish stripper.
Tip: This stuff is strong! Wear gloves, wear a mask, and use in ventilated area.
Tip: If I had to do this all over again, I would not have used the stripper and sanded manually. In the end, I felt with the mess and clean-up this created, it didn't save much time and effort.


Step 3: Lay on stripper thick as to keep a bubbly surface.


Step 4: You can use brush to spread the application evenly but be careful to not brush it too thin. The directions say to leave on for 30 minutes but this stuff evaporates quickly - so I only left it on for about 5 minutes for it to work through the varnish.

Step 5: Scrap away the varnish (should come off really easy now) with a flat knife.


Step 6: Prime surface. I used white primer here.


Step 7: Spray your surface with chosen paint color. In this case, I used blog land's favorite spray paint of all time, Heirloom White by Rustoleum.


Spray paint away!


For the message footboard, I followed all the same steps above (except manually sanded instead), taped off the inner section and painted it with chalkboard paint. Tip: I would have preferred to use chalkbaord spray paint instead but at the time I couldn't find any at Lowes.

I really need your opinions on what you think of my first furniture makeover. Do I pass as a wanna-be designer?