Back in mid-2007, we PCSed to Goodfellow AFB for The Mister to teach at the fire school. The city had a fairly new Ashley's Furniture store and about the time we moved there, they were having an anniversary giveaway. Every week for a set amount of time (a month, I believe?), they gave away a "free" cruise package. At the end of the celebration, they did larger giveaways including a $5000 store gift card. Guess who won that?! Our poor family with no decorative items suddenly had money to purchase rugs, art, some furniture (sadly, almost all of it was so uncomfortable we gave it away when we moved to our current duty station), an entertainment stand, and lastly, a new bed frame for our room. Our previous one had met its demise when The Mister decided to take a flying leap and tackle the bed one day: the frame lost. At the time, we were sleeping on our mattress and box spring on the floor. A free bed frame with head board was definitely welcome.
So we went to the store and didn't like anything they had on the sales floor. (The Mister and I have fairly different styles and very rarely agree on anything. Anything he liked, I hated. Anything I found tolerable, he couldn't stand.) Finally, we turned to the sales catalogue with the items they can order in. After much looking, we settled for one that looked like it was a tall, upholstered head board with the bed rails upholstered in the same fabric. I remember the shot in the catalogue was a head-on one, and that the fabric looked like it was a pretty neutral, creamy/gray color. Imagine my surprise when what showed up at our door was a bed that was a) yellow/wheat colored and b) was a monstrosity of an upholstered half-sleigh bed that stood about 6 inches off the wall. Had it not been free, I would have sent it back and returned it. But...it was free, so we decided to deal until a time that we could afford to replace it. To date, finances have prevented this.
About the time we moved in June of 2010, I started hatching a plot: if we couldn't afford to replace the headboard--and dude, it was FREE, not like we were destroying something we put money into--why not alter it to something more suited to our tastes? The Mister resisted and the subject was dropped.
About 2 months ago, I started persisting again, because I really, really wanted to take off the ridiculous sleigh bed curl at the top of the head board. I would peek behind it and sigh at the floor space it was eating up and hiding back there. (Our current bedroom is rather large, but who wouldn't like an extra few inches to walk around the bed?) The Mister said we would get to it, but then his training came up and my plans had to be put on hold for a month.
Then came Friday, and the urge to rip apart the head board became so strong that I moved the bed off the wall and started investigating the back. After determining that the back had too many staples to make ripping them out practical, I decided the best approach would be to carefully slit it open and take a peek inside. I found The Mister and asked him where he kept his crafting knives and carpet knife. After asking me why, he decided to take over and about 20 minutes later, this was happening.
Ah, I love that man when he gets it in his mind to get something done. For as resistant as he can be to things, he's equally as enthusiastic and focused when he decides it should get done. Apparently, I need to threaten to take a sharp knife to our belongings more often. (I did try to find a photo from when we first got the bed, but couldn't find one. And I didn't think to take one before it was ripped open, so just imagine the fabric and padding are still covering it. It's funny, with the really YELLOW foam right next to it, the bed looks much less so. The back of the fabric which you can see, is a much truer representation of what color the bed is. It just photographs neutral. :P )
Two and a half Mister Hours later, and no cost to us, we had this.
So much better. It's still a little curved, but it's such an improvement and changes the whole feel of the room. We gained about 4" of floor space as well. For now, I'm content to leave it as-is, but when we move at the end of this year/beginning of next, I plan to change the color of the fabric. I love the texture and the fabric itself, but hate the color. I'm thinking of finding a way to airbrush it with a watered down fabric paint mixture.
And guess who else really loves it and keeps making positive comments?
