I got the headboard I wanted without forking over lots of $$.

This is the headboard (and base) I wanted:

This is what I had to work with:

It was labeled "room divider" at the local thrift. They were using it as a display for random doo-dads. The burlap-ish covered part is some sort of really hard foam or something that you can stick pins into. This piece was in a back room sitting under a roof leak. It smelled a wee bit musty.

So here's the deal. I really didn't want to spend buco bucks on the Pottery Barn version. I measured the room divider and found that it was EXACTLY the right size for a queen size bed. And I had a coupon for one purchase at the thrift store. How cheap am I??? I bought it for $12. Other materials for the project: a curtain, also from a thrift store, that I paid $10 for. I was not happy about that - I thought it was too much, but I had already talked them down from $12 since there was only one curtain. I didn't mention that I only needed one. :) Also, I used an old egg-crate twin mattress pad and an old blanket for padding. The paint I already had on hand. Tools: something to pry off the inside quarter-round, staple gun and hammer. Oh, I also bought a waterbed base on craigslist for $10 and painted it the same white. Wish I would have taken "during" pics, but you're all out of luck. 

And here's the finished product:

 

I'm pretty happy with the results. I hope to someday (soon) replace the base with this plan from Ana White. The waterbed base is one of the cheapest, most poorly made piece of furniture I have ever owned. I'm looking forward to replacing it with something more permanent and sturdy! But as long as we don't move the current base, it works. :)

These photos are all from our house in Nebraska. More in the future on fixing up the larger of two master bedroom at the townhouse in Colorado!

New (to me) home, new place to reinvent!

I'm back. I've been in a funk lately. No motivation to blog, or read blogs even. But now I'm back. For six months we lived in a one bedroom, one bath apartment. All our cool stuff was in storage, and since we were there temporarily, I had NO desire to decorate. But now we're in a new place. New to us. It's a townhouse, which is one step closer an apartment to a house. We were planning on buying a house here in Denver, but we didn't sell our house in Nebraska (renting it out) so no cash for down payment. I expect we'll be renting for at least a couple of years. Which is just fine with me, because we are really done with moving for a while. Moving from Nebraska to this townhouse took a four part effort, spread out over 8 months. See why we're done? My parents are probably done, too. They helped with every part. I owe them a kidney or something. But back to the townhouse: it's two bedroom and two bath with a fireplace, upstairs laundry and a half-covered fenced in back patio. Oh, and a two car garage! It has more square footage than our house in Nebraska.

SO...here's the new place. These photos are from the online listing, so they're pretty poor quality. Consider them the "before".

the front door - looks very mountain-ish!

living room and front door

kitchen - the biggest we've ever had

bedroom with amazing windows

I have ideas! And now that we have all of our stuff, I can get to work.  Here are the parameters: We are allowed to paint the kitchen cabinets (I'll match the white that's already on them), but we are NOT allowed to paint the walls. The carpet and counter tops are new, but pretty much everything else looks like it's original to the 1980s when this place was built.

Game on!