KnittyMagic in the Bedroom

NO. Not what you think!

This is another post about reworking your living space with creativity instead of money.

I had been lusting (HAH) after an upholstered headboard. I slept in a hotel bed with one and thought it was so nice to have a plushy thing at the top of the bed instead of wood and an empty space between the mattress and the headboard.

Purchased, they can be extremely pricey. Like, $500. I don't know what they're charging for---the plywood? Thanks to the show Mad Men, there are a number of DIY'ers out there who are creating their own---and they're STILL spending over $100. I'm not sure why. I only spent about $30 making mine. Granted I had some materials left over from other projects, but even buying everything new it would have been WELL under $100.

I didn't know exactly what I wanted, so I waited until the idea snuck up on me. One night as I was watching X files, I was sorting through my yarn stash. The notion of a granny-square headboard struck me. I didn't want it to look TOO kitschy, so I sorted all of the pink and red yarn out of my stash and decided to keep it within one color family. This was a good choice, as it gave it a scrappy look without looking....crappy.

I paid about $18 for the boards, and a few bucks for the joining pegs. (I wanted to use real wood instead of plywood). I padded it with medium density foam left over from a window cushion project. Any spaces I had left over I filled with scraps of quilt batting and fiberfill. I then wrapped the whole thing in quilt batting and then muslin. I had both of these. I stapled the stuff down good and then created a slipcover with my granny squares on the front and a piece of upholstery fabric from IKEA on the back. My dad hung it on the wall using French cleats ($8)

*****

I had so much fun making granny squares that I decided to make a big-ass pillow for my guest room. Color scheme in there is turquoise, so I dug out all turquoise and purple scrap yarns and made a giant pillow. I used blue upholstery fabric for the back (left over from another project). That only cost me $13 for the pillow inside.

There were a few things I was lacking in the guest room though. It's also a craft room for me and Maggie. I used to have a vintage lamp table in there, but I moved it to the living room, leaving a deficit of both lamp and table. I was on the way to Grandpa's to scavenge one when I found a pile of "free" furniture on the street. Including....a nice mid-century style end table with a giant drawer and pencil legs. I snapped it up. After a coat of paint (same stuff from the kitchen) and some vintage glass knobs (Grandpa's house) I had a completely FREE nightstand.

I took two lamps from Grandpa's house. They were nicely styled "ginger jar" shapes. Only problem was they were an ugly yellowish color. With the purchase of one can of spray paint (I had the other), I turned one into a lavender lamp for Maggie's room, and one into a blue lamp for my guest room. Only cost was the shades ($16 for both, Ikea).

And finally, I needed a couple of chairs in there. Inexpensive and comfy but preferably still awesome. Grandpa's house yielded only a couple of not-so-stylin federal style chairs with cane sides. The title of that post will be "A tale of two chairs".

That's called a teaser ;-)