DIY | The umpteenth way to make a headboard

26 July 2015

The regular readers of this blog will plainly be asking: what are you talking about? Well, as you ask so nicely, a headboard is in fact the piece of furniture that you have (or lack of) to lean on when you read in bed. You see? That standing thing behind your back at the side of your bed?

Somewhat 10 years ago (Yes, I dreamed of headboards at 17.. No. I'm only joking), I decided I wanted to have a proper grown up, classy headboard. Something like this:

Or maybe like this:



Well, yeah, I love the style "classy hotel room" and without the money to buy one of those beds, I figured I should make my own.

Just now, I realize the photos that follow those first ones are going to make you weep from disgust. Sorry.

Disclaimer: This post is actually a very important one as it is the first proper DIY post of this blog. To remind many of you, interiors and DIYing stuff is my passion #1 (without being a serial DIYer). I'm addicted to renovation blogs and the like so today, I'm very proud. ☺

Let's get started, shall we?

I got all fancy and used a GoPro to shoot my stylish bedroom.




Let's review what has been going on there.


ONE
TWO
THREE
This is the bed (Boxspring Sultan from Ikea) in its pure and naked form (but without the mattress on top of it):
We switched the legs to elevate
the bed and stash crap under it (only suitcases at the moment):
I added this DIY headboard made of cushions, duvet, grey linen and cardboard and used the remaining fabric on the sides on the boxspring.

This was supposed to be temporary but it stayed like that for two years.

Last Sunday, I went to the market (wink wink to my BFF) to buy some cheap fabric.
10m for 10€, you can't beat that!

On the way home, I brainstormed (very quickly because I knew how I wanted to built the thing) and I decided we had to do it now. As soon as the bf got back, I hustled him up to our local Brico shop and ran to the lumber section to pick some boards up. The bf stood very still in the aisle and said: "actually, I don't understand what you want to do."

This is probably what you think too. So I drew up some plans.



After having built the frame, I wanted to wrap each part in bubble plastic and then cover it up with a fabric slipcover. Notice that on the plan, I didn't bother to think about the height...

I gathered the supplies.



We started to build the frames by adding the "reinforcement" blocks to the shorter boards.


Several minutes later we came up with this:


I can hear your sighs of joy for finally understanding what I was doing!

BUT as you can see, the floor is wonky so the frames don't line up... Exasperation sighs, everybody!

I let my worries on the side and I started hammering down 100 nails on those bad asses to have something to lean on. I used weird wooden planks that I found in a supermarket.

Like this:




Looking good! It doesn't even seem wonky anymore.. Weird.

Then I wrapped sheets of bubble plastic over both the frames.



Finally, I could try the fabric on!!



Yes, this is ugly. The wall color + the fabric = not the best match in history.

Also, the height.



It is too high, isn't it?

Lots and lots of exasperation sighs later, I decided we should shorter the frames because this was looking very ridiculous.

So, off we went cutting the boards and screwing some more..



Yes, it is!

Then I set the sewing machine on fire.



I am sorry, I don't have any pictures of the sewing process to show you because basically I am the worst. The fabric is cheap and quite hard to work with. When you add that factor to my abilities to sew in a correct manner, you get some very questionable finish.

So that's why there is no close-up, but I give you the headboard in all its glory!



I did something like the basic tutorial in this post to sew the corners. I also added a duvet (the one that was behind the carboard headboard) underneath the cover to make the headboard even more comfy.

The final step of my bed-redo was to sew a bedskirt to hide the ugly grey boxspring. I wanted to be able to remove the headboard slipcover and bedskirt to put them in the wash every once in a while.

But first, it's...



Yes, this is not very pretty!

To sew the corners, I pinned the fabric inside out.



Ta-da!!!



After all this, it was finally time to finish the project! I pinned the bottom of the bedskirt, all the way around the bed. I ironed the folds and hemmed along.



Finally, it's...



But it's done!!



It used to be like this!



Okay, so it might not be a dramatic change, but I think it looks much more classy and pretty chic. As if I had bought the bed like that, don't you think? The cardboard headboard was crap and totally amateur: it used to fall off a lot. Now, I've got the real deal!

So that's it for this very long and heavy-in-pics post! I hope I didn't bore you too much and I apologize again for the photos, I don't have the equipment to do a proper 'blog' job.

See you next time for another DIY!

Hmmm, probably not yet...
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