DIY Headboard Project

8/31/2013


For as long as I can remember I've always had a Queen sized bed but when David and I moved into our new house we splurged on a King bed...while I love all the space in the bed I did miss having a headboard, for some reason it didn't feel like a "bedroom" to me without it.  Though I've done quite a bit of online research I just couldn't find anything that I liked that didn't fall into the $500+ price range and that my friends I'm just not going to do.

Then came Pintrest! Tons of posts from people all over creating their own DIY Headboards for a fraction of the cost of buying it online...immediately I knew I had to give it a shot, all I had to do was convince my amazing husband to help me, which of course because he's amazing he agreed to do!

First step was going to Lowe's, my total cost was around $30 and for that we got:

1.  1/2 inch Sheathing which the associates cut to 72" W x 42" H - $18.37
2.  Flat Picture Hanging Kit - $7.96

After Lowe's we went to JoAnn's Fabric, total cost that I spent here was larger but that was to be expected $74.37 which included:

1.  4 yards of fabric which was 50% off, original cost was $16.99/yard but I got it for $8.49/yard (by the way 4 yards was WAY TOO MUCH! I could have gotten away with 3 yards) - $33.96
2.  1 can of spray on adhesive to keep the foam on the plywood - $10.99
3.  2 rolls of foam (2 1/2 yards per roll) - $13.73/roll
4.  1 roll of batting for a Twin Bed - $10.99

Okay, so we've got everything right? Right! Now how to do this with 2 kids running around? Then enters my saving grace, my Mother-In-Law, she lives right around the corner and she offered to watch the girls while David and I got the headboard done, so we dropped the girls off, came back home and got to work!!

1. Set the Plywood (Sheathing) on sawhorses

2.  Layout your foam and make sure that it's all lined up.  We ended up cutting ours into 4 pieces to make it easier to glue to the plywood.  Once you have it where you want it, spray your adhesive and place your foam on top giving just enough pressure to make it stick.  This stuff dried pretty quickly so we were happy we did it in sections.

 
3.  Place your batting over the foam, start from whichever edge you like use a staple gun to attach it to the plywood.  Batting will help keep your foam in place and provide a buffer between the foam and your fabric.

4.  Now onto your fabric...we chose a dark brown with some raised stitching on it that creates multiple diamond patterns, we were doing to do a plain fabric with tufted buttons but a texture seemed a little easier for our first try at this kind of project.  Lay your fabric on top of the batting and again use your staple gun to secure it to plywood.  We started with the bottom part of the headboard first then were able to keep the fabric tight while we stapled the top and sides.


5.  We are heading into the home stretch now!  It's time to attach your hanging method, we chose a flat panel instead of hooks but that was just what we chose to do.  David helped me attach this to the back of the plywood and also into the wall using toggle bolts.  I will mention here that when we went to hang this we needed the extra piece of plywood from when it got cut at Lowe's because of the foam on the back the panels wouldn't fit properly so we had to add the additional plywood then re-attach the hanging piece so it had enough room to stick out and snap together.


6.  Now it's time to take your beautiful creation inside and hang it up on the wall! Here my friends is the final product! Love it!  Looks great and I'm happy with it for being my first real DIY kind of thing.  What do you think??


YAY! All done! I really do think it helped the room feel more pulled together.  Because the stick on saying "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" was kind of crooked so we hung these little brown boxes I had above the headboard to make it look more even.

Extending a HUGE thank you to my hubby for all his help, I couldn't have done it without him and I really do like it!  Hope this helped any of you who would like to do something like this.  Next time I might attempt a tufted headboard (maybe for the girls rooms) but like I said this is a great job for a 1st attempt!

My next DIY project will be taking my husband's grandmothers antique mirror from brass and spray painting it white and roughing it up a little to give a vintage look to hang on our turquoise wall in our kitchen, so stay tuned for that!

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12 comments

  1. I think you did an awesome job! What is the green foam for? Did you get all those supplies at Joann. I love your step by step, it made it seem easy to do. Hmmmm, I'm still contemplating it but I don't think my husband would help me like yours did. He's handy but I know he'll say the bed we have is fine. Great job and thanks for posting!

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    1. The green foam helps to provide padding, this way it's not just a fabric over a flat piece of plywood and it definitely helped give it dimension. Definitely couldn't have done it without my husband's help!

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  2. This looks great! Definitely seems achievable! I really want to do a tufted one for our room when we move...I'll let you know when and if that happens! Btw, we have one of those stickies for our bedroom, too. Actually, we got two for our wedding and I figured we'd keep it just in case I screw it up trying to stick it to the wall.

    Blogger to blogger, you should turn off captcha and turn on comment moderation. Much friendlier.

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    1. I didn't even know I had captcha on! I'll change it now! Thanks for stopping by...next time I do one I'll try tufted but for a 1st attempt I didn't want to overwhelm myself, plus I wasn't sure how long it would really take but from start to finish it took about 3 hours.

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  3. Anonymous9/01/2013

    OMG! This looks absolutely amazing. I shall pin it for later. I haven't even thought of getting a head board for our bed because we intend to get a king as well. My son is just about kicking us more and more out of the bed these days. I will pin this for later! :)

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    1. thank you! I do like it! I woke up this morning and was like "OMG what's that!"

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  4. Great job on this! I think it turned out really nice and looks so pretty in the room! It's so sweet that you and your husband did the project together. I actually like this more without the tufting, the fabric you chose is perfect and doesn't need it. I love that it has texture and a pattern to it. You could totally make some really cute ones for your daughters when they get older!!

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    1. thank you! I'm glad it was easy enough to do because some people said it took them a whole weekend and I do think it would for if you did a tufted one!

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  5. It looks so good, Penny! :) We don't have a headboard for our bed and I hate it. Our pillows end up falling down behind the bed sometimes, it's really annoying, haha. :) Thanks for sharing, I need to bookmark this for later!

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    1. thank you! yeah that's why I decided to do it for just that reason! I hated the pillows falling behind the bed.

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  6. I've never thought of this! It looks lovely, just what I need :) Well done xx

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    1. glad it inspired you! thanks for stopping by!

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