I am quite fortunate that JP's grandparents have always done wood work. They kindly purchased the wood for me (I reimbursed them), cut it according to the plans, brought it to me, and oversaw that building process.
We used pine wood as reclaimed wood is more expensive and hard to find. All the materials cost $100... much better than $900!
The directions for assembly were great, and although it took a little time, putting the headboard together was not difficult and went very well.
We made sure to sand each piece of wood lightly before assembly, and then sanded again lightly before staining. Here JP is round off the edge of the top piece.
1. Thinking we were using the stain and poly in one. There are two types of stains- what I call a normal stain and then a stain and poly in one. The normal stain requires you to wipe off the excess stain after about 5-10 minutes of soaking. The in one stain does not require this. We thought we had the in one stain so we did not wipe off the excess. We actually had the normal stain. So, since we did not wipe it off, we had a very sticky finish. This, however, was not our biggest issue.
2. Our biggest issue was the patchiness that occurred.
As the stain dried we began to notice these grayish patches forming. We had no idea what was going on. JP's grandparents who have much experience with staining had never seen this occur. After much research, I figured out what had happened. Pine is a soft wood. If you do not use a wood conditioner, the stain will soak in at these soft spots and cause these gray patches. Well, we obviously did not use wood conditioner. So, learn from my mistake, if you ever use pine, use a wood conditioner.
3. So how does one fix such a problem. I tried a light sand, it did not work. I did not want to use stain remover because that sounded messy and too chemically for me. The only option left was sanding the whole thing down to the unfinished wood. I used 60 grade sandpaper. This was no easy task and took quite a long time. I will be honest, it was not enjoyable and at times I got very frustrated. While I was doing this, I did not even know if it would help.
4. I finally got it all sanded down to the unfinished wood! I purchased a wood conditioner. I made sure to read the directions and applied it appropriately. After applying it to the first side, I dropped the brand new container of wood conditioner and lost all of the product. I had to buy another can of wood conditioner.
5. If there was one good thing that came out of this mistake (other than learning), here it is. I had not really cared for the stain color we originally used. I felt it had too much red in it and was not dark enough. For the re-stain, we ended up using the stain color Ebony. It looked black going on, put once we wiped the stain off after 5-10 minutes (yes we read the directions this time) it looked dark brown and matched our chest and dresser.
6. After applying the stain, I was beginning to have hope. However, there were two places that looked very chalky to me and I was disappointed. I applied a polyeurathane too finish but was not completely pleased.
7. JP's grandmother suggested finish the headboard with a coat of wax. Oh, how I am so glad she suggested this! When we applied the wax it made the few chalky looking areas disappear. It looked great!
Here it is in the garage.
And here it is in the bedroom (right after installation which is why there is a drill on the table and toolbox on the floor.
Although it does not look exactly like the one from Pottery Barn, it looks very close. I am pleased with it after all the hard work and am glad I saved $800. I learned a lot from this project and would like to make something else. Hopefully, the staining process will go better next project!
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