Mary Ostler

So the long and trying road has finally winded to the end. The bed is done. This project was a fairly ambitious project for myself.  The whole thing needed only a fairly simple skill set, but its a marathon of time and patience.  I have a severe backlog of projects I need to do for other people and a bunch for my own gratification.

I had disassembled the bed rails and foot board.  Scrap skid boards were used to drill holes accomodate  the spindles for painting.

The black paint was made from milk paint stained with candle lamp black. It produces a nice smoky black color.

Moose antlers make a great paint drying rack. The red paint was from a combination of Red Oxide, and a commercial aniline ruby dye. I wish I could have made due without the need for a commercial dye, but all my experiments looking for a red paint produced no good looking paints.

Foot board

Foot board and one side rail.

The dissembled head board.  It was important to keep everything in its exact space. There were a few pieces that were no transferable to another location. One piece in the wrong location would result in one big jigsaw puzzle.

Reassembly has begun. The orangish yellow paint was a turmeric milk paint. Using a small amount of turmeric made for a lighter color than the normal dark orange I have been getting. The smallest pieces were difficult to turn using the fir from the skids I was using. I ended up using a piece of oak from another skid. Unfortunately the oak reacted with the paint causing dark stains on the dried paint.

The head board all painted up pretty like.