the headboard: part 1

The idea of the headboard project has been a month or so in the making.  The original idea from the headboard came from a post from the blog House*Tweaking.  Dana made a beautiful headboard from reclaimed wood from her husband's grandmothers farm.  

I love the use of reclaimed wood.  I toyed around with the idea of doing the same thing, even writing love on it.  The more I thought about it the more I decided the "love" writing was not us.  Of course, Steve chimed in about that too.  When I showed him the inspiration he said...

"That's nice.  Are you going to write love on it too?"  with that nose crinkled face and disapproving voice.  So, no to the love then.

As we started to pull down the bookcases and were left with the frame for the headboard (happy accident!)  I could see that it would end up being much more substantial.  

I began perusing craigslist for something that would work.  I wanted something with interest, but somewhat uniform.  And then I found the perfect listing!  Someone's fence had fallen down over the fall and they were offering the wood from the panels for free.  Bingo!  So I went to pick them up.

It was a typical rainy day in Seattle.  I worked for about an hour and pulled all the boards apart and loaded them in the Sante Fe.  It was quite full.

I got them unloaded from the car and piled next to the house.  I was planning on bringing them in downstairs to dry, but I had to wait a day since we already had doors drying on the floor.  And then the next day...this happened.

Ah, I guess board drying would have to wait.  After a week of snow and a week of rain I was able to bring the boards in to dry.  With the area we had set up it took 3 days (3 sets of wood).

We spent the next couple of days removing and clipping nails and staples.  Then Steve did a brief sanding and clean up on all the boards.  We kept in some of the staples and only did a light sanding because we want them to look distressed and have some character.  This is what the downstairs looks like now waiting for our weekend project.

Hopefully by Sunday we'll have the headboard installed.  Maybe even stained if we work really hard.  We are debating buying a finish nailer or trying to find a friend willing to let us borrow one for the weekend.  Until then, here are some other inspirations I found.

From 508 restoration & design

From Silver Pennies

From The Rooster and the Hen

Ours will look a lot like the one above, minus the white wash.  We're planning on staining it a rich, dark cherry.  I can't wait!