Monogrammed Headboard

I am so excited about how this headboard turned out! 

My sister-in-law asked me if I wanted my brother's old headboard that he had all through high school growing up, otherwise they were just going to give it away or sell it.  Everyone in the family knows not to sell any furniture without asking me if I want it as a project (or they better!) Of course I immediately saw a perfect layout on the headboard for a monogram and thought it would be super cute for my daughter McKinley.  We were getting ready to transition her to a big girl bed from her crib and I needed a bed for her anyway so it was perfect!

I started by sanding it down and getting the top coat off the entire piece.

Here is what it started as..

I put two coats of primer on it so that the paint wouldn't need too many coats.  If you use chalk paint or the paint and primer combo it will probably need a lot less coats than what I had to put on, but I wanted to use what I had in the garage so that this project was 100% free!  

*BTW I "Bye Bye Bye" by N'Sync just started playing while I am typing this blog and it is really taking me back to my high school days and nights spend trying to learn their choreography and obsessing over Justin Timberlake... 15 years later I am still obsessing over him.  Thats success there.*

Ok sorry about the random side note and back to the tutorial. After the two coats of primer I painted the whole thing in an antique white.  I don't know the exact color because I take weekly trips to Home Depot and buy all of their mess-up paint for like $5 for a quart and $.50 for the samples!  Sometimes you get lucky and can get a Gallon for super cheap! It took about 3 coats of white paint to get the look I wanted and then it was ready for the details!

Next I took some sandpaper and went along the edges to create an antique and rustic look.  This is why I don't sand down the original piece too much because I wanted the dark wood to come through.

Now some of you that have seen the end results on my Facebook page may be thinking... I don't remember the middle being pink. Well.... I originally wanted the middle pink.  This is where the counselor side of me is going to come out and give a life lesson on failure.  After I finished the pink in the middle, I was not totally feeling the look but I thought once I got the monogram on it would look better so I continued with the picture below. Lesson on failure is still coming... be patient.

For the monogram, I printed out the letters I wanted just from a Word document, and placed them next to each other to get the sizing just right. 

Then I took a piece of my kids side walk chalk and colored the back of the letter with it, taped it to the middle, and began tracing the letter with a pen and the chalk will transfer to the surface.  This is a really easy technique that anyone can do! You can also use Pencil to color the back of the paper that works a little better on white surfaces so you can see the outline.  But the chalk is much easier to wipe off once you are finished painting rather than having to go back and erase pencil marks. 

Then you just paint the letters on! Below is the original finished product. 

Now, I am still not loving the color and when you have a 4 year old and a 2-year old that is a free spirit (you mommies now what that means) you have to work in about 15-minute increments.  They can only last about 10-15 minutes without someone getting hurt, marker on the walls, red juice on the carpet, toys in the toilet, or a complete melt-down because bubba hit her baby... 

And then you go back to work on your project and you realize you painted the monogram the wrong way.  My daughters name is McKinley Kay Maples, so as you can see I flipped the K and the M.  I was so beat down and frustrated at this point.  And here comes my lesson on failure..

I felt so defeated and like it was such an epic fail.  I was ready to give up and come back to it later, and if it hadn't of been spring break, it might be still sitting in my garage for me to fix.  But I was determined to finish her room while we I was off work so I went back at it during nap time.  As I was sanding the gray monogram (which I thought I could just paint the pink over) the pink started coming off and then it was all kinds of jacked up.  So I had to sand ALL of the pink off down to the wood again so that I could repaint it and it would be a smooth surface.

As I was sanding, the wood started peaking through and thats when the idea of sanding it down and staining the wood a darker color came to me.  It was like I got 5 shots of expresso and started sanding as fast as I could so I could finish it because I was so excited about the idea. 

So this is where I started thinking about failure and how 10 times out of 10 failure is a positive thing..if we let it be.  We are constantly pushing our kids to do things right the first time, and failure is not OK.  When we should be teaching them to take risks and fail a couple of times so that they can learn and continue to grow.  A growth mindset (shout out to educators) is so crucial, and our society has moved away from this mindset.  Something much more beautiful came out of my failure, and I could not have been more happy with the way it turned out.  If I would have settled for my original idea and just repainted it pink, I would have never been fully satisfied with the way it came out.

Going with your original plans, and then taking a detour can sometimes end up with the best and most fulfilling outcomes.  Keep an open mind, and don't be scared to fail!

Here is the end product.