Bedroom boredom cure: DIY headboards
By Christa Terry
Headboards made headlines in a recent issue of Cookie — which appears to be a magazine for mommies with money — in an article about shared bedroom solutions. How does one ensure that both kiddies are represented when you’re designing that perfect child sanctuary? By installing some easy mismatched headboards, of course. Just so you know, the instructions featured in both the magazine and in their blog can easily be modified to accommodate a grownup sized headboard.
I’m going to reprint those instructions here — don’t sue me, please — just in case Cookie changes its blog format in the future:
1. Lay your fabric out on the floor with the front facing down and lay the headboard on top of it, also face down.
2. Trim the fabric so that it extends 10-12 inches beyond the headboard on all sides.
3. Starting at the middle of the top edge, pull the fabric over to the back of the headboard and staple down using your staple gun. Repeat at the middle of the bottom edge, pulling fabric so it’s taut but not stretched.
4. Do the same for the side edges, stapling the fabric at the center point.
5. Working out from the center toward the corners, staple the fabric to the back of the headboard every 6-8 inches along all four sides.
6. At the corners, fold the fabric as though you are wrapping a present, then staple down creating one folded seam at each corner of the headboard.
It doesn’t get much easier than that! I know for a fact that it’s doable because an aunt of mine rocked the cloth headboard in her guestroom back in the 80s and her whole setup was out of this world. She actually upholstered various parts of the bed itself and made a matching duvet cover, so the whole thing was a crazy mass of black and white. It was a very chic and playful piece of furniture in an otherwise somber and serious room, making it all the more charming.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:12 am
And if you don’t have an existing headboard, you can just take a piece of one-inch thick foam in the desired size, lay it on your fabric, and then lay a same-size piece of particle board/chipboard over that.
Follow the rest of the instructions as written. Plunk it behind the bed. Voila!
(You can secure it to the wall, too. Either screw directly through it into a stud, in a spot where it won’t be visible. Or, you can do an eyehook/picture wire jobbie and hang it on the wall like a picture.)
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
You’re brilliant, La Petite Acadienne! That sounds much easier to manipulate than a big hunk of actual wood.