Changing plans - French Single Bedhead

Sometimes pieces end up harder than you expect - actually it wasn't the piece that was hard; it was my expectations of it. A few weeks ago Sara emailed and asked if I had any french single beds. The next day I came across two vintage french oak single bedheads.
So I bought them. So beautiful even in their original state.

We looked at several ways to turn these bedheads into one bed but it didn't work out. Our main issue is that a bedhead is narrower than the bedhead made to use as a bed so without tacking pieces on the side of the frame which would just look weird, we couldn't manage it. I seriously spent so much time trying to work out how to turn the bedhead into a single bed that my hourly rate on this is ridiculous. Sometimes I try to please a customer too much and really should just do up furniture how I originally want and then list it for sale. Saying that this is not Sara's fault at all, and I'm not upset with her. I just should probably choose the easier path when I'm trying to make a profit;)

Sara even bought an IKEA bed frame that I was also going to hand paint in ASCP Graphite and use bed brackets to attach to the bed head. Luckily I realise before I started painting that the IKEA bed frame was  about 15cm wider than the bedhead. Packaging it all back into the box took a long time. IKEA are experts in Tetris let me tell you.  I eventually got all the pieces and the instructions back in the box and Sara bought an ensemble mattress to use with the single bedhead. 

I tell you this story to give you hope if you are trying to re-work a piece of furniture and it's not going your way. It happens to the best of us :)

Here it is finished:

This bedhead was painted in ASCP Graphite and top-coated with a wipe on poly. I then I upholstered it with divine embroidered fabric Sara had bought from Paris. It's so beautiful and worked well with the grey upholstery gimp braid that I had left over from a previous project.

So I have one remaining bedhead that my boy, Jonty has now claimed. He also wants it painted in ASCP Graphite and he has chosen lovely blue-green fabric from No More Chintz in Balmain.  It was funny because I started explaining the project and the lovely sales lady knew all about it (and about me) from following Lilyfield Life on Instagram. Ha ha the price of fame :)

I'll share Jonty's bedroom when I finish the bedhead which will hopefully be later this week. I love his room - so bright and fun. Lucky boy.

Fiona xx