all about my obsession with DIY headboards

drivethirty3
Nov 4, 2014
3 min read

Quick note before I start...making progress on the to do list!! I'll have an update for you soon. woo hoo!!

Back to the point of this post. Headboards.

When we moved to the new house, our bedroom shrunk. Like a lot. The lovely big bulky black wood furniture we had that barely filled up the room in the condo was in no way shape or form going to fit. So, we had to part ways.

My plan for the room was to get a really cool mid-century modern dresser and refinish it. Well, I got the dresser, but we both decided we liked the finish so that stayed put. I also wanted to do an upholstered headboard, since we'd just have the bedframe that the new mattress and box spring came in.

After purchasing some cheap-o sheets at Target, and then remembering I had this awesomely soft Nate Burkas throw from like FOREVER ago, I stumbled upon a bit of a color scheme. I kept thinking about what I wanted to do in that room, and decided that my headboard would be the pop of color that the pretty much white, grey and green room had going on.

I immediately thought of our duvet cover that we had in the condo. Jackson had inherited the quilt that we used with it, and I didn't have any plans for the duvet cover. I wondered...what if I used that as my fabric.

And so I did :)

There are a TON of tutorials out there on headboards.

The easiest is to get a canvas frame the size that you need (usually from an art store) and then just staple the fabric over that. Great, quick and easy and super easy to hang. But not great if you plan on leaning up agains said headboard. Like if you were reading or like to sleep upright. I found a few more using plywood or MDF and decided I would tackle that one.

The first think I did. And by "I" I mean Mike, was to go to the Home Depot and get some plywood. It was heavy. Okay, well I thought it was heavy, he did not. But I was worrying that the picture hangers I purchased to hang the thing wouldn't work. More on that later.

So, playwood. Check.

Then you need some batting, which I luckily happen to have a ton of from my quilting days. And a really cool trick I learned via the interwebs was to use one of those foam eggcrates instead of getting foam from a craft store. it is WAY cheaper. Like seriously.

The process is pertty self explainatory, so I'll let the pictures do the talking :)

okay nevermind. I'll talk a little. So you need to cut the eggcrate to fit you plywood. if you want to you can use some spray adheasive to get it on there good. I just laid out the batting, eggcrate and then put the plywood ontop. Made everything nice and smooth and cut the batting a bit. Then I pulled everything really tight and stapled along the batting.

Ta Da!

I had no plans of cutting my crate & barrell duvet, so I draped it over to decide how best to fold and iron it so it would fit well. Once that was done I laid out the duvet, nice and flat, and placed the plywood on top. Same as with the batting. Pulled the fabric tight and stapled away.

Now came the tricky part. Hanging it.

I got some heavy duty picture hangers from Target and after setting the headboard up to figure out where everything needed to go, I installed the hangers on the wall & the back of the headboard.

Once everything was ready to go I attempted to then hang the headboard on the hooks. Much harder than one would think. I think if I do this again, I'll put the hooks up higher so you can actually see what you are doing.

I lucked out though, and not only did the headboard hold, but the bottom of it was still resting on the bedframe, so I feel like I had extra support.

And here she is!

Sorry for the blurry picture.

I know you are like "that was the best most informative and not super long post ever, I wish she had more examples of how to make headboards" well my friend. today is your lucky day!!

I also made one for Taylor.

Jackson had a headboard I made him, but now that he's in a full bed he obviously didn't need it. For this one I took all the fabric off (but kept it and made blackout curtains with it. yep) batting, foam and just used it all over with new fabric.