Elbow Grease on the Bed

In the light of day (yesterday) we saw that the bed frame we bought actually had quite a bit of rust on it. We needed to clean it before using the bed frame which entailed more than I counted on.
1. There was some kind of sealer on the metal so we needed to strip it off before we could work on the rust. (Off to Home Depot to purchase: stripper, gloves, rust remover, sand paper, steel wool, lacquer)

2. Started the stripping. Oh oh... not enough paint thinner to clean off the stripper? (Back to Home Depot to pick up mineral spirits)

3. We stripped the sealer off the bed. Oh Oh... it took off paint from the little metal flowers. Nuts! I didn't know they were painted black. (Back to Home Depot to buy black Rustoleum paint) What do you know? We already had enough mineral spirits in the tool shed. We didn't have to go back that second time. Oopsie!

4. Applied the rust remover and started scrubbing and scrubbing with steel wool and a cloth sand paper.

5. Painted the metal flower designs and the rails. There was quite a bit of discussion about how we would get that streaked black color on the flowers. Art finally said there were too many chefs in the kitchen so he worked on something else. I decided to make a black paint wash with the mineral spirits. Worked out OK if I do say so myself. Art agreed.

6. Polished the brass.



7. We put the bed together to find out what places we missed.



8. Got called in to dinner by our chef (Mom). We debated not eating dinner and working on finishing and lacquering our hard work.
The paint can did say to allow 24 hours before painting. Is that the same for washes?

But what if it rains? Everything will rust again.

"Dinner," Mom called out. "stir fried broccoli, sweet kabocha squash, tofu paddies, nishime (Art's favorite dish).

We opted to work on the bed the following morning.


Next Day:
We got up to a torrential downpour. Rain as far as we could see. I asked my brother how soon the metal could rust. He said, "Within the hour..."

It does seem to be rusting before my eyes, not that I see any actual indication of it YET but I'm feeling a bit paranoid here after all that work we did.

9. We've just seen that the middle part of the bed sags a little so Art will have to construct some kind of support for that.

10. One positive note: I discovered that the brass balls could unscrew so I changed the two dented brass balls at the foot board for the headboard and faced the dent to the back. Voila! All fixed.

I just have to keep baseball bats away from 2 year old K.C. this summer when she visits us.

We're keeping our fingers crossed for sunny weather tomorrow.