Her Majesty

Senoia, Georgia is a cute little town just a few minutes South of my house. Last year the town was host to the Southern Living Idea House. Southern Living is back in Senoia now redoing an older home to be an idea house that will be open to the public this summer. I have never heard of SL doing 2 Idea Houses in one town, but Senoia is so charming that I'm not surprised!

There are so many cute shops is Senoia, but my favorite is Cydney's Alley. Liz, the owner of Cydney's Alley, and I have very similar tastes and I have enjoyed getting to know her over the last couple of years. Recently, Liz asked me to do some work on this headboard...

Her plans were to not use it as a headboard, but as a piece of art hanging above a sofa in her bedroom. It truly is a piece of art. The details are nice and the painting at the top is lovely.

Here are the instructions Liz gave me for the headboard:

Leave the painting in tact.

Paint the rest light gray.

Add dark gray on the scroll parts.

Beat the heck out of it to make sure it still looks old. Expose some of the white and the green that was underneath the white. 

Add the phrase, "Let it be" in French.

I was so excited about this project that I finished it the same night that I brought it home!

Here she is...

I painted 2 coats of the light gray. While the second coat was still a little wet, I scraped it in some places with an old credit card to expose some of the white.

I painted the scroll pieces with a dark gray. I added touches of turquoise to the dark gray to tie in the accent color in her room.

Once dry, I got out my mouse sander and went to town!

Once I had it sanded the way I liked it, I came back and added the phrase, "Let it be" in French... "Laissez Lui Soyez." I measured and used chalk lines to make sure my lettering was even. I used the same dark gray that I used on the scroll parts to paint the letters with touches of the turquoise. Once the letters were dry, I sanded over them.

I love how the headboard turned out! The hardest part was giving it back. I wanted to tell Liz that it had been destroyed in a fire so I could keep it! But, I'm a horrible liar!

Let's look at Her Majesty some more...