As soon as it was time to start transforming my daughter’s nursery into a “big girl” room, I knew that I wanted an emerald green, four poster bed.  Why?  I have no idea – and this was long before emerald was the 2013 Pantone Color of the Year.  Just like I had picked out the name Emma for my daughter nearly 30 years ago and it’s one of the most popular names in the US now.  I guess I’m ahead of my time.

I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a bed that I’d end up painting, so I scoured Craigslist for months looking for the perfect candidate.  It needed to be full sized.  Its posts needed to be the same height on the headboard and the footboard.  It needed to have a simple design.  And it needed to be cheap.

I finally found one for $35 and I was so excited to bring it home.  It needed much more work than I originally thought, but that’s a normal thing around here.  A lot of blood, sweat and tears (and cussing, if I am being honest) went into this transformation, but in the end, I think I hit it out of the park.

The bed had an original oil-based factory finish on it (white), but an eager DIYer had painted black latex on top of it.  Regular latex paint won’t bond to a shiny surface, so the black paint just scratched off. There was nothing I could do but scrape and sand the bed down to the original wood.

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