Unexpected Daisies: A Weekend Project : Barn Wood Headboard

Last Fall, my friend Sarah asked if I would like to go with her to gather some barn wood from an old barn that was being taken down.

Of course I said yes! Actually, I may have squealed yes. I can't remember for sure. Hmmm

Anyway, wielding hammer and pry bar, I came away with a sweet pile of beautifully aged barn wood and a very sore shoulder. It was totally worth the sore shoulder!! I had so many ideas for putting my reclaimed barn wood to good use.

But my sweet pile of barn wood ended up sitting on the side of the garage through the winter. -sigh-

Project ideas continued to swirl through my mind though. In particular, I could picture a lovely old barn wood headboard for the bed in our guest room, which was headboardless!

Sad isn't it?

So as Spring, sprung, I laid the barn wood out on the patio to dry. I was so ready to begin a barn wood project!

Then it snowed. Grrrr

Barn wood projects as well as the chicken coop project were delayed.

And since the chickens were growing at an alarming rate, the coop took priority when the weather got nice again.

And, well, life happened.

Anyway the barn wood was once again tossed into a pile to wait. -sigh-

Guess what the Husband and I finally got to working on last weekend!!

Yep, we pulled out that barn wood.

Chose the pieces we thought would work best for the guest room headboard.

There was a lot of measuring.

Okay, I'm going to admit to you that the Husband measured. I said, "That doesn't look right! How can that be right?" I then went and remeasured. He was right.

I'm saying it here for all to see...

I was wrong. HE WAS RIGHT.

Eh hem

We then cut all of the barn wood boards to the correct length for our guest bed.

Once the boards were cut we removed the old nails. Wow there were a lot! Wouldn't be good to have guests getting caught on those now would it?

We brushed off dust and debris.

Then we attached new boards, cut to the height we wanted the headboard to be.

Finally we gave it a good coating of clear matte finish to seal the wood.

Then we had to allow the new headboard to sit in the garage for 24 hours because the smell was something else! Whew!

Once the smell began to dissipate, we attached a support beam to the bed frame and mounted our new headboard.