Barn door headboard DIY: day 3

Barn door headboard DIY: day 3

Day three of our barn door headboard project was all about sanding.

And looking super glamourous while doing it, right?!

Neither of us had ever used an electric sander before, but it turned out it was really easy to use and it did an excellent job. Now I want to sand everything!

We started on the backside of the door to get used to using the sander, with a 150 grit sandpaper. Since we were complete newbies at this and pretty much had no idea what we were doing, we decided to start with a “very fine” grit, so we wouldn’t run the risk of accidentally sanding a hole in our door or removing too much of the character. (We also read tons and tons of stuff and watched tons and tons of YouTube videos about how to do it and what grit to use for our project.) The grit of the sandpaper you need to use is determined by how much roughness you need to get rid of. The higher the number, the finer the grit. Since we were working with something that had been finished at one point, we were more concerned with sanding off dirt and errant splinters instead of removing layers of wood. 150 was perfect for this.

While I went over the large areas with an electric sander, Andy took a sanding cube to the edges and corners, at the same grit.

After sanding the whole thing, and going over some of the rougher areas a few times, we used a leaf blower to brush away all of the sawdust.

Then we went over a few rough patches again, both with the sander and by hand. Remember we’re planning on cutting off the bottom, under that crossbar, so we didn’t have to sand that part.

It didn’t take nearly as long as I expected to make the wood nice and smooth, but we still have the weathered patina and character we were looking for.

So as a reminder, this is what the door looked like after day one, when all we had done is remove all the extra nails:

Day two after giving it a good scrub:

And this is what it looks like now after sanding:

Whoa, what a huge difference! It’s a completely different color than it started, and I really like it. I think it has an almost beachy feel that I was not expecting… I might need to redecorate the whole bedroom!!

Our next steps are sawing off the bottom, building a frame to support it and to attach it to the bed, and giving it a clear coat to seal it. So we’re almost done!

Follow along with our headboard project HERE!