Fireplace mantle repurpose

A few months ago I came across this fireplace mantle.

Crazy right?! but those bones…. Well. I found it and it sat… and sat… and then one day I looked at it and knew!

Let me back up… this was our bed…

My cute little farmhouse didn’t need a super contemporary bedroom set. It was nice and in perfect shape.. I was done with it, and it had to go. I did what any logical gal would do… I waited for my husband to go out-of-town and I sold the whole bedroom set in a day….hooray!! Luckily we had a metal bed frame in the basement.

So.. can you see where this is going? That mantle was going to be an INCREDIBLE headboard! When Wagner reached out and asked if I wanted to try their heat gun.. I was ALL IN!!! Stripping all that orange paint with a chemical and the pile of “snot-like goo” that would be left…? Umm.. no thank you.

Have you ever used a heat gun to strip paint? It’s so, SO much easier! It leaves the paint in small pieces with the texture of potato chips that are SUPER easy to sweep or vacuum up. The Wagner Furno 750 makes it that much easier. Let me show you…

Once I finished with the stripping, I drug it into the house (this thing is CRAZY heavy) and set it up-

Better? ok, I totally loved it…

Here’s the thing… the shelf is too low. If you try to sit up in bed, you will completely “brain” yourself. In addition, the “fireplace” opening leaves a 3″ gap between the mattress and the wall where the pillows decided they preferred their new home (super annoying). So it sat just like this overnight (while I listened to my dear husband express his deep concern about midnight decapitation) before I decided something had to be done.

I’ll show you the final design on Friday… but this is still a HUGE step up from where we started, yes?! I am SO grateful for the assistance of Wagner on this project- the Furno 750 made this a complete breeze and I HIGHLY recommend heat stripping over a chemical any day of the week! (never mind the health concerns… just for the cleanup alone)

XO!

~Scottie

(Wagner compensated me to review this product and make a video to share it with you. All opinions are my own, and always will be)

Part 2 “Tufting is Tough”