tamoliver: 2/1/11

our finished headboard

We finally finished upholstering and covering the headboard for our master bedroom. For this project, i came up with the design and sourced the materials, and ryan pretty much took the lead on the production end (my little handyman)! We wanted to go with a camelback shape and decided to use a creamy-beige fabric with damask pattern.

headboard diy in process

We found a great headboard on craigslist for $35, to use as our frame. Since the headboard had some open lattice design, we used a hard-foam to fill the open areas and make the headboard one flat surface. We also cut off the spindles to get the shape we wanted.

We then laid the headboard on our two-inch foam padding and traced the shape, then cut the foam with a mat knife and scissors. We have a great discount fabric store here, Jomar where we purchased the foam for about $6 a foot. (We couldn’t believe that at another retail store two-inch foam was almost $60 a yard!!!)

To add an additional layer of padding we wrapped the two-inch foam and headboard in a soft moving blanket we had around the house, and secured it with staples via electric staple gun. I’ve seen people use quilt batting here instead of a blanket, but we decided to use the supplies we had.

Next, we wrapped and fitted the fabric, which was actually left over from a curtain project we did last winter (and also purchased at jomar). The trickiest part of this project was making sure the fabric was lined up nicely. We took our time as we slightly stretched the fabric and stapled it, kind of like stretching a canvas, but with less tension.

Supplies purchased:

Headboard frame $35

Hard foam about $20

Two inch foam $48

Supplies found around the house:

Fabric

Blanket or batting

Hand saw, scissors, mat knife, staples, and staple gun

We are still working on the furniture layout of the room. For now, it look like this and we like it!