I painted our IKEA bed frame and lived to blog about it.

Before Chris and I got married and moved to Hawaii, we bought all of our furniture (I mean ALL of our furniture) at IKEA. I loved it for a little while, and then grew tired of living in an IKEA showroom. Don't get me wrong- I'm a huge IKEA fan and still go ga-ga when I get a chance to stroll through. But I was dying to mix in some furniture with more character.

We're in a position now where we can start replacing some of our 'newlywed' furniture with 'grown-up' furniture, but for some pieces, it doesn't make sense to replace them. Our bed frame is in perfect condition and while I might not choose the style now, it still works really well for us. (Actually, it's not even functional, since we had to buy a separate stand alone split-boxspring when our original one wouldn't fit up our stairs. So, the IKEA bed frame is just fer looks.)

You may think I'm crazy for having the notion to give a fresh coat of color to our black HEMNES bed frame, but thankfully, Chris was all for it. Surprisingly, he gives the thumbs up on most of my silly ideas. He's pretty awesome like that.

Our bed frame is now a gorgeous shade of yellow-- Twenty Carat by Behr, if you're wondering-- and it took me a few weeks before I quit squealing every time I walked into our bedroom. The cheery color gives life to the room-- especially when we haven't had a chance to hang any art or buy fresh throw pillows yet. 

If you are looking for a detailed step-by-step on painting furniture, John and Sherry over at Young House Love are great experts at that. Get a full tutorial on general furniture painting here. I'll just share some tips below on specific things that helped me get a beautiful glossy and even finish on the bedframe. 

1. Gripper is heaven- sent. This is a big one, friends.  Glidden's Gripper is a heavy-duty latex primer that will make your paint stick to anything-- even slippery IKEA surfaces. This stuff is awesome. I did two coats, but wish I had done more-- just for the color coverage. It took me about six coats of yellow and if I had done one more of primer, I bet it would have covered the black better.  I didn't even sand before priming-- just brushed it on and let it dry. 

2. Thin, even coats are your friend. It's really easy to get overzealous and glob it on. Towards the end, (after 6 coats!) I was getting really anxious to finish up and there are a few drips here and there where I used way too much paint on my brush. It's tempting to think that more paint = less coats, but your paint job will just end up looking sloppy and may not dry properly if the paint is too thick. 

3. Go cheap-- foam brushes all the way! I have done a few projects in the past with fancy $12 brushes-- humungo mistake. You can spend $5 and get a whole bag of foam brushes in all different sizes. They work beautifully for getting a smooth coat and they rinse out so easily. I used a small 1" brush for the small edges and the rails on the headboard. For the rest of the bed, I used 3-4" brushes. 

4. Finish with a little gloss. After using an Interior Satin Enamel paint for my main coats, I put on two coats of Rust-oleum's Polyurethane in gloss finish to seal it and add a little shine. I'm so impressed with how it has held up to Silas banging his toys on the headboard and climbing all over it. I haven't seen a scratch yet. It also didn't dry sticky or tacky at all and the poly didn't affect the color. The finish is exactly what I hoped for!

5. Don't rush it. It's tempting to rush through it, but take your time between coats and before using your furniture. If the paint hasn't had time to cure and you set a glass down on it or it gets bumped, you may have a permanent dent. I spent about a week on the frame, spacing out the coats over a few days.

I'm thrilled with how the bed frame turned out and so happy I took the chance when it could have been a disaster. Beware dressers and chairs-- I'm coming for you next.