DIY Upholstered Headboard Tutorial

So... I've sat on this post for just about a year now...

Sorry about that.

You've all seen the glamour shots of my beautiful upholstered headboard, but it took many comments, posts, and private emails from you guys asking me for a tutorial, to get me to put together my upholstered headboard tutorial!!!!!

I've conquered my laziness, and prevailed.

For anyone new to the blog, let me rewind a bit... before starting this project (which let me just add, was one of the biggest DIY undertakings I've done to date) I'd obsessed for months and months about having an upholstered headboard in our bedroom.  Pinterest was my best friend, and for a while all I was pinning was lovely pictures of bedrooms with overstuffed, soft upholstered headboards.  I loved them all - thick velvet headboards, classic linen headboards, dark headboards, light headboards, tufted headboards, rounded headboards.... headboards with nailheads... headboards with pattern... headboards with detailed cut-outs and sloping sides.

Getting a new bed last year (an upgrade to a California King for my tall honey-bunch) was the catalyst for this project - our brand new shiny bed needed to be decked out, and so the hunt for a headboard started.

To say I felt defeated as I shopped online for an upholstered headboard is an understatement.  They are freaking expensive, people!!  For a California King, we were faced with a thousand dollar price range - especially once shipping and delivery surcharges were factored in.  No way.

After coming up empty handed, I turned to the internet for inspiration, and after reading a few headboard tutorials, I was on board to try my hand at making my own!  This was around the time when I turned to my lovely parents for assistance, so this DIY project became a family affair.

Let's dive right in, shall we??

It started with this picture:

It isn't the sexiest thing, but it really helped me determine what shape I wanted.

Belgrave... for me it was all about Belgrave (and with a strapping name like that, why wouldn't it be??)

Actually, I wanted something like Cavendish or Grosvenor originally, but decided to KISS (keep it simple stupid... remember that??) and that a simple design = less of a chance to royally mess this up.

Once the shape was decided on, my mom and I went shopping.  I want to brag for a second... I am the LEAST decisive person ever, but when we walked into the fabric store, and I spotted this fabric it was all over.  Done.  Easiest decision of my life.

It has a beautiful, rough weave, and it's the perfect color of greige (grey / beige) with nubby bits here and there.

Not only will it conceal dirt fairly well in the long run, but the rough weave promises that it will never look like I was trying (and failing) to "match" other fabrics in the bedding to it (btw, every time I type "rough weave" I can't help but think of something like this)

Anyway...

We also ordered us some of these from Beacon Fabrics:

It's a roll of nailhead trim.  Best. Decision. Ever.

The trim comes as one long strand, and every 5th nailhead or so, you hammer a real nailhead through to anchor it down.  The trim comes in different colors / finishes - we went with the French Natural, and I love it.

Initially, my mom tried to convince me that we should do individual nail heads.

Cannot. Fathom.

We will get to that later... but trust me you guys, nailhead trim is the way to go unless you have about a bazillion hours to kill and the patience of a saint.  As it was, I almost lost my s*** installing the trim so I can't even imagine the individual nail heads.

Sorry.  It still brings up a lot of emotion thinking about the nailheads.

Ok, moving on.

What else do you need for this project besides fabric and nailheads??

- A big piece of cardboard
- An even bigger piece of plywood (and beware, plywood is heavier than you think!)
- A friend with muscles to help lift and carry heavy plywood
- Batting
- Rubber mallet
- Spray adhesive
- Jigsaw
- Sandpaper
- Staple Gun
- Pencil
- Upholstery Backing
- Straight Edge

If you want to attach legs, you'll need a few extra items...
- Solid wood (my dad used two pieces of pine)
- Wood Stain (for the legs)
- Bolts (we used 4)
- Bolt cutter
- Industrial Strength File
- Patience

Step one - decide how high you want your headboard to be.  It was incredibly helpful for me to visually see a mocked up headboard behind our bed to determine height with the pillows all stacked up in front of it.  It also helped me determine how big and at what angle I wanted the cut outs to be.

So our bedroom looked really classy for a week or so with this piece of cardboard behind the bed:

Once I decided on my own we agreed on how big the cutouts would be, and how tall it would stand (for reference, I think I went with 68" tall, and about 5" wider than our mattress), we went for it.

Step 2 - trace cutouts and width on the plywood.

Cut it down to size using a sweet jigsaw.

Side note: I love how easy it was to type out that step.  It's easy guys!  Just cut it down to size. With your power tools.  That you hopefully know how to use!

That step actually should have said, "Dad, put your safety glasses on before using the saw!!!"

Ok now they are on... now that the saw is off.  Awesome.

Anyway - I have the best dad, who knocked these cuts out in like .2 seconds.  Luckily no eyes were lost or injured in this process.  Bad dad.

Anyway, at this point get out the sandpaper and make sure all the edges are smooth.

It's also at this point that if you're attaching legs to the bottom of the headboard, that you attach said legs.  If you're in our family and seek perfection in everything, then you stain the legs a few days ahead of time, so that they are pretty (thanks Dad!)

Why attach legs? you might wonder...

Because I wanted the most massive headboard in the world... no because I wanted it to stand higher than our pillows instead of getting hidden behind them once the bed was properly made.  Plywood comes as a standard 4x8' and so with just 4 feet in height, it needed a little extra from the legs.

This is also a step where you want to be sure to measure everything well!

That should almost go unsaid, and be a general rule in all DIY projects (I can just hear my dad say, "Measure twice, cut once") but here's why it's crucial to be sure on your measurements when attaching the legs...

This headboard is really big and heavy, so to be sure it was steady behind the bed, we wanted to anchor it to the bed frame (you CAN anchor it to the wall, but because we rent, wanted to avoid putting massive holes in the wall, attaching the headboard to the bed is key).  Long story short, the legs need to line up with the bed frame, so make note of the bed frame measurements before attaching the legs.

Once the legs are bolted on, we cut down the extra length of the bolts, and smoothed the nub down as much as possible with these tools...

Not sure what the technical term for this tool is (industrial strength emery board?), but it's basically a huge nail file for metal.  Pretend you're doing manicures.

Ok one more glamour shot of the pretty stained legs...

Gorgeous.

Now that you've got the base built, and legs attached, take the headboard inside - it's time to cover it in batting and fabric.

Roll out the batting and bust out the spray adhesive.

Because we're a family of Type A personalities, we had to steam the batting first.  This is entirely optional (but satisfying).

Once the batting is smoothed out from being bunched up in the package, spray the headboard (the front side) with spray adhesive and smooth the batting from the center to the edges.

The excitement around spraying the adhesive is optional.

Once the batting is attached to the front, you'll want to pull it tight on the edges and staple it to the back.  Super simple.

On the curved corners, we cut the batting like this so we could wrap it around the curve nice and tight - no lumps.

See how that works?  Staple it down so it's secure, and use a hammer to tap in the staples that didn't sink all the way in.  Cut off the excess batting around the staples.

Repeat this process with the batting another time for a second layer of batting - this will make for a nice cushy headboard.

You'll notice I didn't say anything about foam.

We didn't use foam on the headboard, which is why we wrapped it with the batting twice.  The plywood is really thick, and at first I was really pushing to use foam, but since we weren't going to do any tufting (that seemed a bit ambitious for first timers) the foam would have made the headboard too thick to have nailhead.

In the end, no foam for us.  Just batting.  If you are going for a tufted headboard, you'll of course need to use foam, but since we weren't doing tufting, the batting is plenty cushy.  I believe the batting we used was the high loft as well (in case you were wondering).

At this point, the headboard should really be taking shape! It's going to feel like you are on the home-stretch...  but you're not.

Not yet... it still has to be covered with the fabric (and the nailhead trim is still waiting for you).

The obvious next step is to covering the headboard with the fabric - be sure that your fabric is ironed.  To have wrinkles would be a shame after all this work.  We found it was easiest to lay the ironed fabric face-down, lay the headboard face-down over the fabric, and start stapling from there.

Following the diagram below will be the easiest for you to follow where to staple and in what order:

The order goes like this:
  1. Secure the sides
  2. Secure the top and bottom
  3. Secure the curved areas.

Once the core staples are in that hold the fabric to the board, we picked the headboard up and stood it upright to finish the stapling like this.  Having my parents hold it steady while I stapled allowed us to see where the fabric needed to be tighter, etc.

As you go, use as many staples as you want - go to town with the staple gun in fact.  You don't want the fabric moving anywhere.

After everything was secured, I went back in between all the staples for another round - in the end my staples were about 2 inches apart - one inch in some cases, especially around the corners.

For the curved areas, I used the same method of cutting the fabric towards the board as I did for the batting - this just really helped it hug the curve with no bunching.

For the areas around the legs, just do your best - we turned it under and secured with a staple, but keep in mind, no one is going to see this area pretty much ever.

We forgot that no one would ever see the legs, and ended up trimming it out all pretty with silk tape and nailheads.

Go figure.

We're Type A, and can't help it! It's really an illness!

Ok, not to get ahead of myself here... the next step to the headboard is appending the nailhead trim.

I am not going to lie, this was the hardest part, and probably the most time consuming, and frustrating for us because we made a few mistakes (which you can easily avoid).  This is where a straight-edge, two pairs of hands, and an extra set of eyes come in very handy.

All I can say is thank god we got the nailhead trim instead of trying to hammer in individual nailheads.

Ok, so this doesn't take much explanation, but the process here is to lay the nailhead trim down, and use the rubber mallet to pound in a nail head every few beads.  DO NOT USE A HAMMER - you NEED a rubber mallet otherwise all your nailheads will be dented.

When you unravel the trim it should look like this:

There's a little hole every fourth bead, so you know exactly where each individual nail will go.  Pretty foolproof.  The tricky part is keeping the row running straight.  We used the straight edge and a pencil to lightly draw where the row would go, but use this only as a LOOSE guide.  We layed the nailhead on the line we'd drawn, not realizing that the fabric shifted a bit as we went, so the row started trailing off at a very slight diagonal.

A word from the wise: step back every few nailheads and look at the headboard from a few feet back.

Up close, it looked like we were going straight across the top, but standing back we realized we went off course.  Save yourself the pain because once it's pounded in - especially to plywood - it's VERY hard to get it off.

If you keep these tips in mind, go slow, check your work from a few feet back, and be patient, you won't have to go back and redo all your hard work (like we did).  It SHOULD be easy!

A few other things I wanted to point out...

The trim had really sharp edges! My dad cut himself numerous times on it, and was nearly banished from this project after bleeding on my brand new headboard.

I forgave him.  But only because he's my dad.

Also, the trim is really easy to bend, so it you're working on a headboard with curved details, fear not, you can just bend it around very easily.

Finally, it's relatively thin, so while we used heavy duty snippers to cut it, you could actually even use normal scissors.  It wasn't that thick.  Promise.

At this point, you're basically finished - the headboard is cut, legs attached, padding and fabric stapled down, and nailhead applied, but we did finish it off with one final step - which I should add is entirely optional - we finished the back with upholstery backing.

It's super cheap, and usually comes in black.

We cut it to size and stapled it over the back to cover the raw plywood, and to cover all the unfinished fabric edges and staples.

It really finishes it off, and after spending a full day on this sucker, we were going for perfection!

I mean just look at those glorious nailheads!

And that fabric!!  LOVE!!

So that's it my friends - the full tutorial on how our DIY headboard came to be.

It's been almost a year since we built it, and it's holding up SO WELL!  I mean it's pretty much still brand new in my mind, and we could not be more happy!

The double layer of batting makes it really cushy to lean against when we're reading in bed, the nailhead trim adds a little extra detail, and I am still so in love with the shape of the Belgrave.

For the seasoned DIY'ers out there, this project will be a cinch, and even for us first timers, it wasn't so bad (minus the frustrations with the nailhead being perfectly straight).

If there's anything I missed in my tutorial, or any other questions, just post them below or email me!  I'm happy to add more detail, or answer any questions you have if you're attempting this on your own.

Hotel Bedding DIY

Our bed got a mini update last week - nothing earth shattering, but a definite improvement...

It's probably not very noticeable to most people, but we FINALLY got some euro shams for our bed, and I did a little hotel bedding DIY on them.

I've been wanting actual hotel bedding pretty much since we moved in here a few years ago, but its SO expensive.  Even just 3 euro shams from Restoration Hardware run several hundred dollars, and I was not about to pay that for just a few decorative pillow cases.  Thanks, but no thanks.

I'd been digging on Overstock, eBay, and Amazon for other options... I looked at a few at Macys, Bloomingdales (yep, they sell bedding online!), and Lands End, but either the options were still really pricey, poor quality, or the wrong colors.  I wanted either navy, or a dark grey (black seemed more limiting since we have a lot of navy going on in here)...

So I decided to experiment with a little project.

I'd seen projects online where people had used grosgrain ribbon to trim out curtains, so I figured the same could be done with pillow cases.

I started by ordering some fairly inexpensive plain white euro sham pillow cases off of Overstock.  I ordered these ones in case you're interested. They look nice, but aren't the best quality to be honest. I don't really care since we're not sleeping on them, but I wouldn't recommend them for anything other than a decorative euro sham.

Once I got the shams in the mail, I went to the fabric store and bought 10 yards of their 1" cotton grosgrain ribbon.  Our euro pillows are 26", so I needed a minimum of 8 2/3 yards, and in case I messed up a bit, I wanted extra yardage.

A word of warning - do not go with a synthetic grosgrain ribbon.  When you iron it, it crinkles up, so be sure you pay the extra few dollars for the 100% cotton (learned that the hard way folks).

Anyway, the project was really simple - once I had the ribbon and the pillow shams, I got out my stitch witchery (iron on adhesive tape) and went to work ironing the pieces of ribbon on.

If I were to go back in time and do this again, I'd also invest in a REALLY sharp straight edge, and something to measure a perfect 45 degree angle for the angled cuts for each corner, but live and learn. I found that my sewing scissors weren't quite as sharp as I would have liked, so it was more difficult to get a perfectly clean cut on a 45 degree angle. A few of the corners aren't perfect, but its not that noticeable.

Live and learn.

Anyway, I still need to go back with a paintbrush and a dab of glue to all the cut edges to seal them and ensure they don't fray, but the project only took me about 45 minutes to iron everything down, and get it on the bed.  It also cost me maybe $80 total for all three pillows and the ribbon - SO much less than any other option, where the pillows ran close to $50 each.

I'm really happy with how it all turned out (clearly), and our bedroom just feels so much more finished. Like I said - a small change, but it's one more thing to check off the list!

Happy Monday!

Full Dresser Reveal - Ikea Tarva Hack

So last week I'd jumped the gun with excitement and posted a few blurry pictures of the newly painted dresser that is in our room functioning for storage and as a TV stand...

This has been a long time in the making... remember LAST FEBRUARY when I first started talking about this???  Well, it's only taken me eight months to finish this project ;-)  With the hardware attached, I can OFFICIALLY check this project off the list!

Yep, that's my reflection in the TV!!

I can't even begin to explain how good that feels to be able to say it's DONE.  Phew!

I am so pleased with how it turned out - the ultra-marine blue paint color brings such LIFE to our bedroom without being overwhelming, or too in your face.

I am in love with how it all turned out, but it was a LONG road to get here... let's start at the beginning...

Ikea... on a Saturday... NIGHTMARE.  I got in, I got out, and a glass of wine later, I was ready to get the party started get this dresser built.

Step one: organize nuts, bolts, and assorted other random pieces Ikea packages up.

All I'll say is... be VERY CAREFUL to be sure that you are using the right little screw thingy for each step of the process... you do not want to have to go back and take apart the dresser halfway through because you used the short screw and not the long one - TRUST ME on that one.

You may also want to enlist a buddy to help read the instructions... they use pictures, not words, and some of the little drawings I STILL can't figure out.... bottom left picture... what do you think that says?? "Don't break the furniture you're building?"  Is that what it means?  Thanks Ikea... wise words...

I'll spare you the boring details, but our living room was a disaster zone for two nights, as it went from this...

To this... an almost completed dresser! 

WITH FUNCTIONING DRAWERS.  

Holla! 

Look at those drawers... that open and close smoothly.  A work of art I tell you!  I've never experienced a more satisfying moment.  

Well, except for that time when I was home from college, and went to Costco with my mom, and saw that the girl that bullied me all through high-school was working the front door...  that was also an EXTREMELY satisfying moment... Deanna!  Is that you??  Going places in life I see... 

Another story for another day... 

Anyway, it felt REAL good to get the drawers working...

Moving on... the wood is pine, which means that it secretes oil from the knots in the wood for years... YEARS PEOPLE... so to be sure that the knots stayed hidden, and that my lovely paint job stayed intact without any bleeding from the wood, I used a super-duper primer.

Kilz primer got the best reviews online for sealing in wood oils on pine furniture, and so far so good.

I read that having the primer tinted made things MUCH easier to paint over when using a dark paint color.  I am SO THANKFUL I did this - I probably saved myself an extra coat of paint (or seven), and many frustrating hours in the long run.

The tinted primer won't be as dark as your paint color, but it helps SO much.  It went on a light blue (pictured above) - I did 4 thin coats with a roller (to be sure none of that oil from the wood came through over time), let it dry, sanded it, wiped it down really well.

Then it was time to paint.

I just did regular water based paint (for easy clean up) in a semi-gloss - three coats with a roller later, and these bad boys were drying in the living room...

The most interesting thing to me about this paint color is that it photographs so differently in different lights, and that's actually how it is in real life.  In bright direct sunlight, it's a rich peacock blue, but in the afternoon it's definitely a darker moodier version of itself... sometimes it almost looks like a dark green.

Like a mood ring - it's totally fascinating to see!

Remember my inspiration for this color?? It was this Peacock Blue Dresser from Dimples and Tangles that got the creative juices flowing - I still love how her's has the lacquered look.  

It's AMAZING.

Anyway, you all know about my love of the brass hardware - it was quite a hunt to find!  My first order was cancelled because they ran out of lion head pulls!  WTF... I had to hunt it down elsewhere, which added a few extra weeks onto this project.

The dresser was in our room, just waiting for those pulls, and when they came, I was even more excited with how cute these guys were!  Quite sassy if you ask me.

RAWRRRRR.

And so, that's the story my friends...  are you ready for the massive photo dump??  Here we go!

The view from my side of the bed... that's a pretty realistic image of how the paint color reads in person - like the color of the ocean 40 feet down... gorgeous!

And a few close up images of the hardware against the paint...

Our old problem was that the TV stand that had been in here was too low to the ground so we couldn't see the TV from the bed... especially once we bought our giant California King, with the extra high box spring.

Now, as you can clearly see, the TV is at optimal viewing height...

This room is SO TRICKY to photograph - it's not big, and so this was the only angle where I could really get the whole dresser in.  Awesome photography skills - clearly.

And as I'm posting these, I'm realizing that there are a few unintentional selfies where I'm reflected back in the TV.  In my pajamas.  Awesome.

On another topic, how awesome do those navy and white curtains look with the dresser???  Totally baller.

Next up on the list... what do we do with this wall above the TV??

It's a HUGE improvement to have the TV higher on the wall, but it's still very empty feeling.  I know I have a bit of a problem and want to put something on every wall, but I swear to god, this wall NEEDS something.  I was thinking sconces, but the lazy part of me is like... ehhhhh.

If we didn't have so many freaking mirrors in this room already, I'd consider a trio of round convex mirrors, and I haven't completely ruled that out, but I'm trying to think of something other than another mirror...

Here's a photo of our lovely dresser from the bathroom door looking back towards the hallway and our dining room / office area.  I love that the spaces have a really cohesive feel...

Oh, and don't forget to notice our dust ruffle on the bottom of the bed.  It's a subtle change, but a HUGE improvement since you could see all the crap stuff we were storing under there and it just looked so unfinished, and ugly, and messy, and terrible.  UGH.

Now it's hidden and I'm SO much happier.

This next photograph was taken from an angle I don't often capture since the salmon tile in our "art deco" (aka old as hell) bathroom is all up in your face.

What you can't see (thank god) is that the shower was re-done at some point since the 1930's, and in an attempt to match the coral tile, they went with pink.  Pepto bismol pink.  That doesn't match.  Not even close. Oh well...

And just for good measure (and since i was already in there with the camera) I got a few photographs of the headboard and new bedding together.

I'm liking this combination for fall, and I love that the Duralee fabric on the bolster ties in with the other colors in the room, and brings a punch of color to wake things up a bit - as you can see, I'm still on the hunt for euro shams.

Standing a bit further back, you can see yet another empty wall that kills me a little every time I see it. The wall above our bed and headboard just needs SOMETHING.

I think I nice oversize clock would be nice here - again, trying to stay away from more mirrors in here... plus it will help keep me on time as I get ready in the morning...

So that's it!  The new dresser / TV Stand / Ikea hack is complete!  If you need to find me, I'll be in bed watching TV from now until forever.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

Happy Tuesday!!