Faux Pottery Barn Bunk Bed tutorial

My kids are growing up so fast these days.  It seems like just yesterday we had two cribs in one room and then all of a sudden we found ourselves bunk bed shopping. It's crazy.  I fell in love with a pottery barn kids bunk bed. The nearly $1300 price was out of the question for our family.  Quite frankly, that is our mortgage payment for not one but two months.  I had to get creative.  I searched Craigslist,  Facebook and online stores for a durable, solid wood, good quality bunk bed.  Everything I found was too expensive, not sturdy enough or already sold.

 Then I got a message from a wonderful lady on FB; she had a bunk bed and had not even considered selling it until she saw my post!  Luke and I drove over and got it from them for $150.  It was exactly what I had been looking for.  I was so excited.  It was wood, sturdy, and in great shape!

Bottom bunk before

I was nervous about refinishing the beds but my friend gave me a ton of encouragement and advice.  The Monday after we bought the beds was a snow day, so me and the three kids trekked off to Lowe's in the "blizzard" to purchase sanding and painting supplies.  I picked out Valspar's Semi-Gloss Hi Def paint in Dove White (which was very similar to PBK's Rustic Sun Valley White).  I bought the Lowe's brand clear coat, medium sand paper, Elmer's wood filler, wood glue,and a nice paint brush. ($60)  

I had to buy a few extra things because as Luke and I were moving the beds into the room, I fell and snapped one of the headboard's rails.  I was so mad but it was a very easy fix and you can't even tell now that it has been glued, filled and painted.

Top Bunk sanded on left side and foot board

Step One: SANDING 

I loathe sanding.  I spent 2 hours sanding one of the headboards by hand and then my husband came to the rescue with his parent's electric sander.  Each bed took about 30 minutes with the sander.  I did not sand all of the stain off but I did make sure it removed all of the clear coat.  

Step Two: WOOD FILLING

filled in knots of ladder and rail

After I finished sanding, I used the wood filler to fill in the deep scratches, wood knots, and chips in the wood.  Since I used paint and not stain, it worked perfectly.  I am not sure how it would look with a tinted stain.

Step Three: PAINTING

 

 

Ladder and Rails 2nd coat

bottom bunk 2nd coat

top bunk 1st coat

Talk about tedious.  Painting sanded wood is crazy.  Some spots soak up all the paint, some spots drip and run.  It's a messy process.  Once I got in my groove (and my parents took the kids for an impromptu sleep over) I knocked it out quickly.  I did two full coats of paint (Valspar is primer/paint in one).  I also had to do some touch ups of a third coat.

Step Four:  Clear Coat

Shiny Clear Coat

My best advice- OPEN THE WINDOWS! Holy cow! I am very glad my kids were at my parents.  I am pretty sure I wasted a few brain cells while coating these beds!  I bought the inexpensive clear coat and had no problems at all.  It dried in 30 minutes, only needed one coat and left no discoloration of the paint.

Top Bunk with 2nd coat, Bottom bunk untouched

Finished Bunk Bed

bedding custom made by Shiloh Mae Custom Sewn Accessories

Cost Break down:

Used Bunkbed $150

Paint, clear coat, supplies, etc $60

MDF & misc bolts $60

 (to make slats for the beds because we decided to go with regular mattresses instead of bunk bed mattresses)

2 New twin mattresses $130

(GREAT SALE at NFM.com)

Project Cost: $400   compared at retail of Pottery Barn bed: $1,299

(Will update photo when we get the ladder and rail installed)

Turning over a new pillow.

My kids have issues.  I love them dearly, but sometimes I wonder how these 3 kids with their different issues were all put in my care by God.  Here's the short list: Club Foot {check}, Lactose intolerance {check}, Celiac {check}, Sleeping disorder {check}.  Not all of these affect all three, but they all affect me.  I haven't blogged much about the Landen's club foot because we've done all the treatment necessary for now.  We're required to visit Children's Mercy Hospital (CMH) annually for him.  Cecilia is my Celiac and we visit her GI specialist every few months at CMH as well.  Talia's been seen at CMH for GI stuff but nothing really big.  Until yesterday when her boycott of sleep for nearly 18months finally landed us at CMH for a sleep study consultation and sleep psychiatrist.

I really wish I had been keeping a journal of her sleep patterns for the last 2 years, but I didn't so my sleep deprived memory is what we have to go one.  She slept well as a baby.  Around the 7/8 months mark, she stopped sleeping well and started waking up for a 3 am feeding again.  She wasn't nursing any longer and her pediatrician said she woke up to eat simply because I got up and fed her.  She screamed for hours.  Ferber was wrong for this particular child.  I started waking to keep her company during the night, catching a few hours here and there before the other kids woke up.  Soon I began pulling more all nighters than I could handle.  We moved, changed jobs and towns.  I started stressing because my soon to be 2 year old was still awake consistently though out the night for 5 or more nights a week.  We started to shorten her nap times to just one 45min nap a day.  She has always had an excellent bedtime routine, Sleep at 8pm, wake between 6:30-7am.  Except more and more it was common for her to be awake from 2am-5am as well.  We started .5 mg of melatonin.  NOTHING. Eventually worked up to 3mg nightly of Melatonin.  Still no change.  Occasionally, she falls asleep in the car or at dinner.  But not often.  Finally, I call my pediatrician and BEG for a sleep study.  He sends us to CMH.  And here we are. nearly 2 years after the first problem began.

The appointment yesterday was wonderful.  It was long, intense and eye opening.  It was also frustrating.  We are looking at first availability for a sleep study in May 2012!  I plan to stalk the cancellation list until then.
The pyschiartrist gave me a beginning plan for fixing the learned behavior that has come with whatever medical issue we are facing.  #1 No more Talia in MY bed. (i thought easier said than done) #2 No giving in. EVER.

If you weren't sure, Luke and I are not into co-sleep parenting.  I have nothing personally against this method, I just don't sleep well with anyone besides Luke and I in our bed.  It causes our relationship to be more strained and we really don't need any extra strain!  This is actually good for us because our doctor seems to be super against it as well for many reasons (not all I am sure I agree with) but the good news is for whatever reason we are all on the same page for Talia's sleeping!

So, here goes nothing- "Project: GET TALIA SOME SLEEP" starts NOW!

Angry Birds: The Birthday Party

When my soon-to-be 7 year old asked for an Ipod Touch for his birthday, I knew we were in for it.  After a long afternoon of reasoning with him and trying to figure out why exactly he wanted an ipod touch, we came to the conclusion it was all about the angry birds.  I finally said, "babe, you're not getting an ipod touch".  He starred at me for a bit until I saw his eyes light up with an idea, "Mom, what about an Angry Birds birthday?"  I was super excited because I knew it would be a very creative party! He loved the party and I hope you find some good ideas to use for an angry birds party of your very own!


The main objective for the party was to be able to play Angry Birds in our living room and involve more than one person at a time.  My husband and son decided we needed a real set of angry birds to play in the house.  (It's January- no one wants to be outside!) The boys really wanted the game to be enormous.  I have no idea why but when it came down to it, we needed a more manageable size.  

Here's what we came up with:

We used the golf balls in a standard sling shot as the birds and shot them into small bottles painted green for the pigs.  Used small boxes to create the platforms.

PIGS:

I had just purchased a 12 pack of Naked Juice (10oz bottles) at Costco.  

We painted them green, drew faces and glued them to the bottles.

BIRDS:

I bought 60 plastic white golf balls at Walmart.  It was about $5.  I painted them the colors of the birds (which was time consuming and they chipped easily- wish I could have found plastic golf balls in colors!)

The sling shot was purchased through Oriental Trading.  

They were about $1.25 a piece and also become part of the gift bag.

The second game was a pinata.  These are a tradition for our kid's parties so I made two, one for his friends party and one for his family party.  You can read more about making these here

Cupcakes:

I made my own cupcake toppers by grabbing a picture from pixmule and adding conversation bubbles to say "Happy 7Th Birthday, Landen"

(This is OKAY to do because I received permission from the artist- YOU MUST SEEK PERMISSION)

I printed, cut and taped them to plastic toothpicks.

Goodie Bags

(blue paper bags from $1 store with red bird glued on front)

•  Slingshot (punch balloons for the younger kids)
• 3 "birds" to shoot
• Angry Birds Fruit Snacks (walmart) Gushers.                                                                      WM sold out the week of the party and hasn't gotten them back in yet :( I searched EVERYWHERE for them.
• candy they filled themselves from the pinata

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gift from Aunt Ashley & Uncle Sam