So I have yet another Pinterest DIY project that I took on...mind you it was started and completed just days before I give birth to my 4th child! Goes to show that it doesn't take all that much effort, especially if you have a wonderful hubby helping. I get so much more satisfaction knowing I made something rather than bought it at the store and I'm pretty proud of how this project turned out. So as I'm sitting here on my couch (as I have been most of the day waiting to see if these Braxton - Hicks contractions turn into the real deal) I figured I'd post it up on the blog while it's still fresh in my head.
My hubby and I just treated ourselves to a new bed... we had our last queen sized bed since we moved in together 8 or something years ago and it was just time for a new bed after numerous moves and running out of space - two little midgets somehow manage to make their way into our room in the middle of the night. Anyway, we got a king which is huge. Haha. But we just got a simple set on a metal frame and box spring. No fancy headboard. No fancy wood sleigh frame. Just the bed. We knew we wanted to make our own headboard but wasn't sure when we would get around to it with the bambino's due date around the corner. However, the husband was not digging how boring it was looking and we took advantage of his holiday time off and my nesting plus some liquid energy (my 1 cup of coffee a day) to just get down to it.
We didn't follow any particular tutorial on Pinterest. We looked at a couple of pins and kind of planned out what we would do together. We knew we wanted a tufted look and we saw a tutorial for a headboard with some arms which I want to trim with nailheads. We got to measuring and planning - we recommend adding an extra inch to the width of the mattress measurements. We then came to an agreement on how high we wanted the headboard to go...this is completely a personal preference. I think for our king we ended up with the measurements 4 ft X 77 in. At Home Depot we had a 1/2" plywood board cut to that size. We also had several slats of 1" X maybe 2". My husband used these to manufacture some arms for the headboard which we would bolt to the bed at the end. The rest of the supplies and how much they cost are as follows:
4' x 8' x 1/2" Plywood from Home Depot= $35
3m multi-purpose spray adhesive from Home Depot = $7
2 full size 1.5" foam mattress toppers from Target = $40
3.5 yds of batting from Walmart = $15
3.5 yds of fabric of your choice from Walmart = $8
I already had buttons and scotch guard and wood screws and staples that we used. Total only roughly $100 or so.
The husband started by building the legs while I took the cut board and sprayed it with adhesive to attach the foam to. I left some room on the bottom where the mattress would press up against. I also covered the legs in foam. This process is pictured below.
I gave the foam a little bit of time to fluff out since it was packaged tightly in a bag. My hubby brought the board inside so that the fabric didn't get dirty. I layered it on the carpet fabric first, then batting, then the foam covered board. I wrapped the fabric around the back of the board and stapled them down (pictured below). The corners can be tricky but I just did what I thought looked good.
The next step was to cover the arms with the batting and fabric in the same way that I covered the board, stapling them to the back of the arm so only 3 sides are fully covered. I wanted to leave the back open for when we attached the arms. Before, I did that, though, my husband meticulously measured out where the buttons would go and I put staples in their places and scotch guarded the fabric (pictured below).
My husband took over again at this point. We set the covered board face down on the bed and set the arms beside it exposed wood side up. He took some scrap 1" X 2" wood pieces from where he made the arms and screwed them into the back of the board and arms to secure them together side by side.
Lastly, I took to adding the finishing touches sewing the buttons over the staples we had measured out. The very last thing I'm going to do is add nailhead trim along the arms... but that might come a little bit later. We were too anxious not to set it up behind the bed right away. We had to see what it would look like and we were both quite pleased with ourselves. See the mostly finished product below.
This whole project took us all of 2 days, but it could be done in 1 if you already have all the materials needed. We ended up having to run out for more fabric and batting (we originally only bought 2.5 yds of each but it wasn't enough for the arms). All worth it for the end result. :)
