Dilapidation turned Dashing

It all began with what some might consider a pile of junk, or firewood. It consisted of old fence boards, a couple of free-alongside-the-road pallets, as well as some burly, new pallets donated to the cause by Circle K Ranch.

But it wasn't junk at all, it was our soon to be headboard.

We began by taking each pallet and fence panel apart and removing all the nails.

 Although our bed is a queen, I looked up the measurements of a king size bed, because I wanted the size of the headboard to exceed the size of the bed. I spaced the legs the correct distance from one another, prior to working on the layout, so that I knew how much space I needed to cover.

 I pieced the boards together in a way that I found visually pleasing,
alternating rows of older and new boards.

 Each board was screwed into place from the backside.

 Brian trimmed the extra off each end.

 We weren't worried about making a perfectly clean line because the next step was adding trim to each side and the top to create a finished look and to bring all the boards together. 

 We added our trim and made sure that the boards going on top were bigger, creating an overhang.

Once the headboard was assembled I broke out my trusty Ryobi corner cat sander to round any rough edges and remove any old junk from the front sides of the boards.

I wanted the completed project to have a grey hue about it. I knew that applying a grey wash would tie all the mismatched boards together without making them too uniform.

I had never white washed anything (or grey washed, for that matter) 

but I decided to go out on a limb and try it anyway.

And I'm so glad I did. I turned out exactly how I saw it in my head.

Stay tuned for our bedroom reveal starring our new headboard. :)