The other day I came across an ad on Craigslist for a vintage Jenny Lind style twin size headboard at a price that fit right into my current budget for the guest room, $40. This one had all of the spindles in place, unlike the $5 garage sale one that I passed up a few weeks ago.
So, I sent an email to arrange to see it. Every once in a while I find someone on Craigslist who would prefer to meet somewhere rather than have potential buyers come to their home. This tends to be rare with furniture purchases. After all, it can be rather inconvenient for the seller to load up some furniture to meet you somewhere else. But I did once buy a nice cane backed chair out of someone’s trunk at a gas station. The seller of this bed also wanted to meet somewhere and offered to let me name the place. As it turned out, she was a young woman by herself so I commend her for being safe about it.
I asked her to swing by my office at the day job. Since I work at City Hall, it’s pretty easy to find. And I think she felt perfectly comfortable since the police department happens to be right there. She showed up promptly at noon, I handed over the cash and transferred the headboard from her car to mine. Easy peasy.
I’ve already shared the chippy cabinet painted in Homestead House’s Laurentien milk paint that’s in the room. Yes, it’s the same name as the Fusion Laurentien I used inside my giant English cupboard and close to the same color. Both of these paints are made by Homestead House, but one is milk paint and the other is acrylic paint.
I’ve also shared the pretty little chair that I painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Apron Strings milk paint. FYI, it’s also made by Homestead House.
Since the walls in this room are white, I felt like I could get as colorful as I wanted with the furnishings. Plus, aside from the cupboard, everything in this room is an inexpensive garage sale find, so if I get tired of the colors I won’t feel bad at all about replacing a piece with something else.
So I decided to choose yet another cheery vintage-y color for the bed, one that would bring out another color in the quilt that I’ll be using.
I considered green, but ultimately I felt like yellow might just be perfect. But what shade of yellow?
A while back the lovely people at Homestead House gifted me with some of their milk paint in several shades of yellow; Buttermilk Cream (check out this dresser that I painted in the Buttermilk Cream), Ochre, and Garden Seed. Since the Buttermilk Cream is the only one I’ve used before, I decided to mix up just a bit of each of the other colors and paint them on popsicle sticks to decide which one would be right for my bed.
That’s Ochre at the top, Buttermilk Cream in the middle and Garden Seed on the bottom.
Then, since I already had some paint mixed up, I decided to paint some clay pots too. In case you haven’t already figured this out about me, I just love painting stuff. If I have some paint sitting in front of me ready to go, I like to put it on something.
Then, since the pots were pretty plain I added some Tim Holtz rub-ons to them to dress them up a bit.
Nothing like getting a little distracted and losing sight of my original purpose.
But this little exercise did help me decide that Ochre (2) is the yellow I want for my guest room bed. The Buttermilk Cream (1) is just a bit too pale. Especially when compared to the other yellows. It almost looks more like a creamy white in these photos. But when it’s compared to white you can see that it is a very pale yellow. The Garden Seed (3) , on the other hand, is just a bit too mustard-y.
That’s not to say that I didn’t love the Garden Seed, just not for my guest room bed. And since I already had a brush wet, I decided to mix up some more and paint a sign.
I used the table leaf from a table Mr. Q and I picked up the other day and my Funky Junk Farmers’ Market stencil. If you’re wondering how I gave it that two dimensional look, I first painted the stencil in a medium grey. When that was dry, I re-positioned the stencil by just a hair and then painted it in white. It’s a simple way to make your stenciled sign look just a tad more legit.
Well, so much for getting that bed painted last weekend. But when I do get around to it, I’m definitely going to paint it in Ochre.
q is for quandie 
Thanks for the two dimensional tip for painting a sign. Love all your projects.
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Thanks Mary! It’s a simple thing, and I just love how much it adds to the look of the stencil.
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I can so relate to getting distracted and not accomplishing what you set out to do originally! And here, I thought it was just me. That is a great tip for creating a two dimensional look. You are so creative. I think the bed you purchased will look wonderful in your guest room and I can’t wait to see it painted.
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LOL, yeah, sometimes I get completely distracted by something and never quite get around to working on the project I started out on. Hopefully I’ll get that bed painted later this week!
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Funny, I opened up this blog right after I had painted up some popsicle sticks! Haha. Great minds think alike. I am painting a dresser green. I love Luckets but wanted it a bit darker so I added a little bit of Boxwood. Perfecto! I was painting popsicle sticks to decide on which color to paint the dresser. I love the bed! I would have chosen the ochre also. Beautiful color. Can’t wait to see it all come together. I love the pots. They look great stacked!
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LOL, yes, great minds 😉 And don’t you love mixing milk paint colors? I don’t know why, but somehow I find that so much more fun than mixing other kinds of paint. There is something about putting those powders together, adding water and then watching the color form as you mix it up. Like magic.
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I’m going to try the stencil tip now! Please post the bed when your done! What a beautiful find!
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Thanks Victoria! I hope you like the results with your stencil, I know it was a game changer for me. And I’ll definitely share the bed. I just got a text message that my metal bed frame has arrived, so I’ll be able to get the headboard painted and in place … hopefully this week.
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I adore Jenny Lind beds. This room is going to be so charming. So the quilt is the inspiration to pull this altogether. Family piece or thrift find?
Cute pots clever use of your test paints – they really have a nice selection of colors. My local shop that carried these closed last year. I found another one online about 20 minutes from me I need to head over there and check out their inventory. Look forward to the whole room reveal!
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I love the vintage farmhouse-y look of a Jenny Lind bed. I’m hoping I can get a nice chippy milk paint finish on it to tie in with that look. As for the quilt, none of the above. It’s actually a new-ish, machine made quilt from the JC Penney catalog (or something similar, I can’t really remember, I bought it in the 90’s). I do have another quilt that my grandmother made that I may try to use in the room somehow. It’s in really poor condition though, so I’m not sure if I can even use it. We’ll see.
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Quandie! I always love the vignettes that you assemble……lots of soul there! A question: Do you spray-glue your stencils before you paint?
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Nope, I don’t. And there are a bunch of reasons why I don’t. 1) I don’t want to leave a residue behind on my piece. 2) I don’t want to leave a sticky residue on the stencil itself and then try to store it that way. 3) I don’t want to have to clean that spray glue off the stencil instead. 4) If I use a stencil over milk paint, I don’t want to pull off the paint with the sticky stencil. 5) You don’t need it to prevent messy, sloppy stenciling. If you use a very dry brush, the appropriate paint and pounce or stipple your paint on you should get a crisp clean line without using an adhesive on your stencil. I prefer using acrylic craft paint (the little bottles you can find at any craft store for a dollar or two) for stenciling because it tends to be thicker than the paints I use on furniture. I will use a couple of small pieces of yellow frog tape (for delicate surfaces) to keep the stencil in place while using it.
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LINDA!!! That stencil tip is gold!!! My word, I’ve never thought of that before- you’re a genius!
Thank you😊
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Well, I’d like to take full credit for the genius behind that idea, but I’m sure I didn’t come up with it on my own. I wish I could remember where I saw it so I could give that genius the credit, but unfortunately I don’t remember!
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I love the stencil idea. I actually had to go back to the picture to look at it again, not believing that it was stenciled on! I enjoyed your choice of yellows … they each are fabulous for different purposes.
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Thanks Sarah! Yep, that Farmers’ Market sign is stenciled. It’s amazing what a difference that little shadow makes!
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Whoa…love that garden seed color. I’d love to paint a faux pumpkin with it.
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What a great idea Sugar! That color would be gorgeous on a pumpkin.
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