Look What I Made! {Haute Headboard}

Lately, I've been so enthralled with the idea of upholstered headboards. I love them. Actually 'love' doesn't define my feelings. I'm obsessed. I NEED an upholstered headboard. But the ones that I found in furniture stores were too expensive, and the cheap ones that I found at IKEA just weren't quite what I wanted. So this past weekend I called off my search and finally decided to just make one already! 

Here's a pic of what my bed looked like, pre-headboad. Sad, I know

I must say, not to toot my own horn, it turned out amazing!!!! I chose to make my headboard out of three upholstered panels. I wanted to be able to mount the headboard to the wall, and it just made sense to me to hang panels instead of one huge sheet of wood. If you have a free day or two and access to some pretty standard tools, I highly suggest making one for yourself. Just follow the step-by-step below (which is for a Queen size bed, 60" wide).

Happy {hard-core} Crafting!!

Step One

Head to your local fabric store. At this stop, you'll need to buy 3 yards of the fabric of your choice, 3 yards of upholstery foam (I chose foam that was 1.5" thick), and 3 yards of batting. I totally scored at Joanne's. I was able to use a 50% off coupon on all three of these items. So what would have been a $160 transaction turned out to only be $80. The best part is that I didn't even have the coupon when I went in....all I did was ask!

Step Two

Your next stop is a Lowe's or Home Depot. (I choose Lowe's because they don't charge to cut wood). At the hardware store, you'll need to pick up a sheet of half-inch thick plywood, spray adhesive, and keyhole brackets. Also, if you don't have screws and screw anchors, you'll want to pick up a few of those as well. 

You'll want to ask the nice man or woman at Lowe's to cut the plywood down to 3 panels, 20" across and 36" high. If you want your headboard to be a bit taller, then I'd go up to 42" high.

Step Three

Time to cut! You'll want to cut your foam down to the exact measurements of your plywood boards.  Try cutting your foam with an electric carving knife; it'll glide through like buttah! Then you'll want to cut your fabric and batting, leaving some slack on each side, depending on how thick your upholstery foam is. Remember that you'll need enough of an edge to wrap over the thick foam and secure with staples on the back of the board. 

Once cut, adhere your foam to your plywood panels with spray glue and let dry

{Thanks for the help. Mom!}

Step Four

Now it's time to dress your plywood. Place one fabric piece correct side down, then a piece of batting on top of that, and then put your board foam side down on top of that. I suggest wrapping the batting and stapling that first, then going back and wrapping the fabric. You'll want to make sure that you work across to make everything smooth and straight- meaning you'll staple one side and then the opposite side, one end and then the opposite end. I suggest using 8mm upholstery staples (anything longer won't go all the way through the board)

When it comes to the corners, you'll want to trim a triangle out of each corner of batting so that you won't be stapling a huge mass of batting into each corner. If you cut the triangle properly, the batting will look like two mitered ends of wood fitting together (like a frame)

You'll then be able to wrap the fabric around the corners, just like you're wrapping a present.

Step Five

Now it's time to hang!  You want to mark your wall in the center of where the middle board will hang. Put an "x" on the wall 12" down and 24" down.  At these spots, you'll put an anchored screw about 3/4 of the way into the wall. Now don't be hasty to put all of the remaining screws in the wall! It's very important to actually hang the middle panel before you measure out the spots for the other screws.

You want to mark down the center of each board at the 12" and 24" mark. This is where you will attach your brackets. Because you'll be using a keyhole bracket, you need to hollow out a little space in the plywood where the head of the screw (that you will screw into the wall) will hook into the bracket. You can use a router bit on your drill for this step. Once you've routed out a nice little pocket for the screw head at both spots on all three boards, go ahead and attach the keyhole brackets. 

Once you have the brackets on the middle board, hang it on the wall. This will be very frustrating, but hang in there...you'll get it eventually. 

Once it's hung up, it's time to mark out where your next screws will go on the wall. This step is a bit of an eye-ball step, but just go with it. Stand on your bed (or a ladder if you've moved your bed out of the way for this project), and hold the next headboard panel as though you are hanging it- so its flush with the panel that is already hung.  Look down the wall from the top of the board, and mark the wall at the spot that you can see will line up with the brackets. 

~But wait, you must be asking "wouldn't it just be easier to figure out where you're supposed to put the screws into the wall by measuring"? I tried this. I figured, I've got three panels that are each 20" across and I want to hang them from brackets in the center of the panels, so I'll just mark a line on the wall at 10" across,  30" across, and 50" across. Well this would work out just fine if I was only hanging boards, but since we've wrapped the boards with batting and fabric, there is some extra heft around the edges that really throw off those measurements. So it's better to see where your brackets line up on the wall and just mark the wall accordingly~

Following the mark that you made at the top of the wall, screw in your anchored screws at 12" and 24" down on both sides of the board that is already hung. Slap those two puppies on the wall and......

You've done it!!!!!

Check out my sweet bed now. The after pics are always so much better with these things :-)

This whole project cost me all of $115. A pretty good deal if you ask me! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll help you out as best I can. 

Good Luck!!!