Four Poster Bed: Cherry Finish Meets Shabby Chic

ATTENTION:  You are about to witness the cheapest Master Bedroom Makeover in Blogging History.  The only major expense you see in this picture?  The $72 Duvet Cover!  (okay, so if I was Aimmee from Twigg Studios, I would have saved that money too and made my own out of King size Sheets).

I promised you guys the Four Poster Bed Post today, and well at 4:30 this afternoon, I didn't have the throw pillows done, the sanding (distressing) quite finished on the last post, or the rag wreath made that I wanted to hang in my old window for the photo shoot.  But at 5:20, I was snappin' pictures!  Woo hoo.  The stuff you can get done when Hubby gets home to keep the little hoodlums entertained!

 Let's check out the rather embarrassing BEFORE of our master bedroom, shall we?  Yeah, totally not cool, Kammy.  I always put it off though because really, I figured, who sees it but us?

So many things wrong with this BEFORE.  For one, my friend Maran pointed out, the height of the dresser just does not work next to the height of the bed.  You're so right Maran.  But it made a nice big nightstand while it was there!  (Check out it's awesome aqua paint job HERE.)  The bed was so stinkin' tall, at 4'10" I almost needed a step stool to heave myself into bed.  And while I was pregnant?  Yes, I did need one.  We got rid of the box spring mattress and Tim cut a peice of plywood to take it's place.  Now the bed doesn't seem to engulf the whole corner of this room.  Phew.  The blah boring bedspread with zero pillows... yeah I was so done with that.  Anything else?  Yeah plenty, but let's get to the positive!

After priming it with Zinnser Bull's Eye paint, I mixed up my own chalk paint by pouring  some Valspar Ultra White Semi Gloss into an ice cream bucket and dumping in a heap of Plaster of Paris.  I have it at least two coats.  It dries very quickly and is ready for sanding soon after.  I went through a LOT of 100 grit sandpaper distressing all of the nooks and crannies of this bed.  The paint dries so hard that it takes some muscle to sand it off.

There she is, slaving away.  Think I should drop a few pennies in her piggy bank?

The old window hanging over the bed I picked up free, the rag wreath was made using scraps of fabric, as well as the pillow embellishments.  The blue pillows were 50 centers at a garage sale.  Stay tuned for a future post on those babies.

My bed scarf is fabric I found at JoAnn's on the clearance shelf for an extra 50% off the markdown price - making it $3 a yard!!  It brought in all the colors I wanted and added the punch the room needed.  

The two darling bedside tables were freebies on the curb at my friend's house who graciously scooped them up for me and dropped them off at my house!  I'll give you the before and afters on them in a future post.  And the lamp?  Well, you'll have to wait for that one too! :)  UPDATE: The lamp got some coral paint added to it and you may click HERE for the lamp before and after.

Hope you enjoyed my favorite part of this Master bedroom makeover!!!!  You can view the last two weeks of posts for other parts of the bedroom redo.  Hope you'll stop back for more!