Cutting The Posts Off The Canopy Bed

Yup, we at last gave Ed a little haircut. For over a year and a half we tried to work with the posts on Ed the bed, but the realization that we did not have a lofted ceiling or a floor plan that made sense of those big dramatic posts slowly worked its way into our conscious and we at last chose that simply because Ed was born with long hair posts does not mean that a little haircut is cruel and unusual bed punishment. So here he is before…

… during…

… and after…

This whole bed-trimming project was free, took about an hour of work, and we totally dig the more open look. It was simply too much vertical stuff going on- especially with the bed right next to the window (with those floor length curtains going on). Ed’s totally crying out for a large fabric headboard so we can raise the mirror above the bed about another foot or two (like this poorly photoshopped rendering) and someday we’d enjoy to stain the floors (and possibly the dresser) darker…

… but we are getting there. And simply because I cannot stop at one photoshopped headboard option, here are some more I had lively with:

But back to reality. You know we like to use what we have, and we enjoy Ed for so many reasons. The height, the comfort, and the thin airy legs that he sits on which allow us to hang out be weird under the bed…

… so instead of fully scrapping him (ex: craigslisting him and buying a new bed) we devised a fully reversible plan to give his posts a little trim. How is it reversible? Well, while they do not simply screw off or anything, they are solid wood posts. So we can consistently reattach them by adding a pleasant long metal screw to the center of each post that we could simply screw back into the bed frame to attach them (it is how a bunch of Ikea items are made, like how Lack tables have legs that can be screwed on and off). So although we do not foresee any reason to put those suckers back on, who knows… perhaps someday we will end up in a house with lofted ceilings and we will wish we could put Ed back together – and now, theoretically we can. Haha.

So after concocting our little Ed-tweaking plan, this is how it all went down (complete with insanely embarrassing not-meant-to-sound-perverted comments by yours truly):

For those who cannot watch the video (perhaps you are at work, although it fairly much tells the story on mute) we snapped some photos for ya too. We in short simply lined the Dremel up (we have a Multimax, and used the wood cutting attachment) with the base of the post and slowly sawed around it.

Oh and see how we put a piece of cardboard between the mattress and the post? Simply hoped to make sure we did not get too chop-glad near the mattress (and moving our organic mattress takes the strength of ten vampires, so we simply did not have it in us).

Thankfully we had no mattress casualties and each post came down after around five minutes of careful cutting.

We in fact got much better at making especially clean cuts as we went, so we are glad we began on the two bottom posts of the bed (which will consistently be covered by the comforter anyway) and worked our way up to the top two posts, which are seen a lot more.

John even let me take a spin. I had to wrestle the Dremel from his cold dead tool-loving hands, but it was worth the trouble. Girls need a romp with a power tool every once in a while too. Especially because safety glasses are so undeniably sexy.

We were truly surprised how pleasant the top posts looked when they were cut. See the circle detail that they ended up sporting (the bottom posts did not have those)? They made it look like a decorative design, so they looked convincing. Like they were meant to be this way. Total glad accident.

Then we simply did some sanding to get everything smooth…

… and I used the Ikea-white paint (I did a little hunting to find the ideal white paint that matches Ikea’s white tone here) that we had leftover from another project.

Check out the top right post after cutting, sanding, and painting…

… and the top left post after the same rigmarole.

By the time the paint dried and we made the bed it totally looked like Ed was born this way. Cue the Lady Gaga dance-a-thon.

Here is John breaking it down. Simply kidding. He ran through the shot and kicked his leg up in some sort of weird victory cry and somehow the camera caught his ghosted karate move. Hilarious.

Here are things from another angle. Obviously we need pleasant large art where those botanicals are floating on that wall on the right of this picture (we will rehang the botanicals over a chair that we have in another corner), but we are getting there. Especially once we build an upholstered headboard for Ed and move the mirror a bit higher, so it further ties into the chandelier.

I cannot tell you how much we like this hand-me-down dresser from John’s parents in the nook. It is the ideal fit.

We already shared how it looks from the hallway in this morning’s post, but here is that shot again, simply to refresh the ol’ memory:

Although it certainly does not match the wood dresser on the other side, there is something charming about the little white nightstand in the window. And the fact that we have the same bedside lamps on each one sort of connects the two pieces, even though they are quite distinct.

Here is a straight shot of the bed as it looks now. I am certainly itching to get on that headboard project so I can bump the mirror up a bit higher so not everything will be in the same line (the art on the right and the mirror are so perfectly lined up, I think the bed will feel more special with a big fabric headboard and a higher focal point above it). And as for the color of the dresser and the white nightstand, we are open to painting or staining something, but we are not rushing into anything.

One thing is for sure, it certainly feels more homey and full than it used to look back when the bed was on the wall near the door.

And it is so much nicer to walk into this view, instead of stepping three steps in the door and hitting the bed.

So that is the latest bedroom tweak, but we are likely a good dozen tweaks from being done in here. Haha, you know us. Inching along. But you know we will keep you posted when we tackle other things, like dealing with the bare wall across from the bed, making a giant fabric headboard and moving the mirror up, etc. Should be lively…

Oh and how funny is this? Every morning around 10am the sun shines through the window above the sink (this pic is from before Ed’s move and subsequent haircut)…

… and this shape is reflected on the rug:

Yup, the elongated shadow is fairly much exactly the same shape that is on the rug itself. The weirdest thing is that when we fell in love with this rug and snatched it up at a local outlet, we made absolutely no connection that it had a similar shape to the mirror above the sink. Hooray for glad accidents.

What are you folks up to in the bedroom (decor wise, I mean – let us not get saucy). Has anyone else altered their bed to make it work better for their room? Or straight up built one from scratch? Anyone else planning to make a headboard in the next few weeks? I cannot wait to go fabric shopping…