STAIN FAIL TURN UPHOLSTERED WIN!

What initially started out as a simple staining project, very quickly and suddenly turned into a complete and utter disaster... or so I thought.

So, the other day, I decided to finally change up this bed that we have in the guest room. We moved it with us from our last home but it wasn't really fitting the vibe anymore. When we first moved to Austin, we were strapped for cash and living in a rental, so we took any furniture that was given to us by family and bought almost everything else at Ikea. So I guess you could say our home was pretty...eclectic.

Now that we own our very first home, it's important for me to establish a more cohesive theme throughout. Don't get me wrong, I am seriously OBSESSED with eclectic homes, and I thoroughly enjoy and do mix styles, myself; however, if it's not done intentionally, it may look a bit out of place. Which brings me back to this bed.

Although the guest room is far from done, you can already clearly see that the light pine bed stuck out like a sore thumb against the deep, antique tones in the space. Not to mention, I can't think of a single wood piece in our home that is this light in color. However, being the DIY connoisseur that I am (ironic hair flip), I wasn't just gonna throw this thing out and buy a new bed. Nah ah! So what's the first quick fix that popped into my head, duh! Just stain it. But "if onlys and justs were candies and nuts, then everyday would be Erntedankfest" (Extra points for all Office fans). Before I get ahead of myself, let's unravel what went wrong exactly...

First things first, I did exactly what any "professional" would do. Note here: I'm not a professional, far from it. But, I'll give myself credit where credit is due, and that starts with me actually testing out the stain on the back (where no one would see it). You can even see in the photo above what I discovered myself. The stain on the right, which was just plain ol' stain directly rubbed on and instantly rubbed off, completely absorbed into the soft pine wood. My next point of action was to somehow lightly "seal" the absorbent wood prior to applying the stain. In order to do so, I sprayed a light layer of shellac onto my test patch, waited for it to dry, and then rubbed stain on and instantly rubbed off (again) with a rag. You can see what that looks like in the photo above, to the left of the original stain.

With that said and done, I decided "ok, that's enough testing, let's just go ahead and shellac and stain the whole thing". Which is exactly what I did. I applied the stain with a foam brush as I've done many times before without any complications, anticipating to rub it off shortly after. What I didn't anticipate, however, was how quickly it would dry. So when I went back to wipe it off, it was now goopy, tacky, and wouldn't really budge. When I tried to reapply the stain over the sticky stain (as to sort of re-wet it), it just ended up wiping all the stain off underneath, revealing nothing but the lightly shellacked wood.

You may be able to see in the photo above where I tried to "re-appy"/wipe off the stain, those are the lighter areas of the headboard. What you can't see in the photo is the amount of rubbing and wiping and number of rags that went into it trying to fix my mistake. To be completely honest, it didn't take very long for me to give up for the night and return to it come morning.

The next day, I woke up bright and early to tackle the disaster of a DIY project. Once the stain was mostly dry (still somewhat sticky in some spots), I went at sanding it... and sanding it... and sanding it. Suffice to say, there was a lot of sanding. And once I was finally able to reveal most of the bare wood, I took a long hard look at the headboard, and clearly thought, "no way I'm doing that again". So I quickly shifted gears and ran to our nearest craft store.

There, I picked up enough poly foam to cover the entirety of the headboard and some fabric. Yup, you've probably already guessed it, I decided to upholster the headboard. So first things first, I unrolled the poly foam, spanned it across the front of the headboard, and attached it using a staple gun, as seen below.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/0d6a3f_17d4ecce35e240b7b710b1cc5c33b4b1/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

As you saw, I first stapled the sides. When I reached the corners, I cut a line perpendicular to the top of the headboard, just like this...

I then cut that piece that I am holding in the picture above, off. That way, when I went to fold the corners over, there wasn't any extra foam that may cause bulging in the finished product. Here's what that looks like...

So now, once I fold the corners over, there's a nice clean edge, exactly like this...

At that point, I finish it off by stapling across the top.

And here's what the front of the headboard looks like once the poly foam has been attached...

Next, of course, was attaching the fabric. Before doing that though, it's extremely important to iron it. As much as I despise ironing and therefore often walk around in wrinkly clothes, I knew it would make a huge difference in the final outcome for this project. So, after ironing, I began attaching it in the same order I attached the poly foam: sides first, corners, then top.

You'll have to play around with the fabric to get the desired seam you want in the corners, but because the fabric is so much thinner than the poly foam, you may not need to cut off any extra bits in order to prevent bulging. But, if you do notice that there's a bit too much excess fabric when folding the corners, you can cut some away but be sure to not cut off too much because you still want it to be stretched over to the back. Which actually leads me to my next point: stretching the fabric.

Depending on the fabric, but I'd say really for any fabric you're using, you want to be very careful with how much and which direction you stretch it in. I bought a fabric that would easily stretch across the headboard and not so much up and down. With that being said, I did not stretch the fabric to it's entire capacity. In fact, I only smoothed the fabric on the front side of the headboard with my hand, just enough to smooth out any ripples and wrinkles and then stapled it to the back. If you stretch and pull too much, there's a chance you will see irregularities in the fabric itself and even create bulging in the poly foam underneath.

Once the fabric has been attached all along the headboard, I was practically done. Now, I'm aware, the back side is not a pretty sight, but for this project, I'm not particularly worried about it, as it will be pushed up against a wall and no one will ever be able to see it.

To finish it off, I put three single staples at the very bottom of my upholstery at the front of the headboard, one on each leg and one in the middle, as to hold the bottom of the fabric in place. You won't be able to see these staples because the mattress will end up covering it, but here's what that looks like...

And that's it! That's how I flipped a DIY staining disaster into an upholstery win! Sure, sometimes projects don't go as planned. Heck, life sometimes doesn't go as planned! And that's okay. If there's anything you'll get from this blog post, I hope it's that you know it's okay to take a step back, regroup, and then move on. Sometimes you'll get frustrated, discouraged, and will want to give up, but after taking a moment for yourself and your thoughts, you'll go ahead and approach whatever it is with a clearer mind and create something even better than you initially anticipated.

It seems I'm only writing myself a reminder, but if anyone happens to read this, I hope it'll stand as a reminder for you too.