Upholstered Headboard: DIY

Being in the business of finding and recreating seems to get passed down through the generations.  My grandma passed it to my mom, my mom passed it to me, and guess I'm passing it on to Happy Girl.  She's been wanting to "teen" her room up a bit, and spotted this upholstered headboard while moving Grandma and Grandpa last spring.  She got right to work in the driveway disasembling it...guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!  She was prying out nailheads and staples, and got to experience the old stuffing materials.  We found this label on the bed:

It's always fun to see where items came from.  We were definitely not going to refill it with moss!

Once stripped of it's fabric, I got to work sanding and painting it.  I used Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Ironstone white.  I sealed it with General Finishes clear wax.  I used MMS bonding agent in the paint for the first coat.  It still chipped a little, but Happy Girl was o.k. with it.

She originally picked out a funky aqua and green geometric fabric, but then decided something subtle may give her more flexibility with bedspreads.  We found a grey and white swirly bird fabric at Joann's that she fell in love with, and looked great with the curvy bed.

I am not an upholsterer, but have done enough chair seats, etc. to be comfortable with an electric stapler.  Somewhere online I learned to use cheap carpetpad instead of more expensive batting.  We assembled our materials and got to work.

I first stapled on a tightly woven cotton duckcloth fabric.  It will face the wall, and will create a sandwich for the other materials.

I then cut one layer of carpet pad, and wove webbing over the top.  The webbing was stapled to create a taught foundation.

We then spread some batting over the top, because we wanted the final look to be a bit crowned, rather than just flat.  This picture shows our first run at it-we actually took one of the carpet pad layers out and placed it above the batting.

Here's what looked the best: the canvas, 1 layer of carpet pad, webbing, batting (which was from some old crib bumpers), another layer of carpet pad, and then fabric.  Now for the pretty part...

Happy Girl smoothed the fabric and pulled taught while I stapled.  I trimmed the excess after, running my scissors in the groove of the headboard.

It was a hard decision, but she settled on a pretty aqua trim of organza-type flowers.

We attached the cute curvy footboard to the side rails and got it all set up in her room.

Check back tomorrow for how her bedside tables turned out, and how cute and happy her "teen" room is looking!

Comments

[Elisabeth Forsman]

Love it Lora and Grace! Perfect fabric choice too!

[Cheryl Jarl]

That's the same fabric I just picked up for our new headboard project. It's the same fabric I used on the two door armoire with ceiling tin sides, only the reverse, darker background with white design.

[June Huston]

I love your fabric choice! Thank you for sharing this! I'll try to make one for my bedroom!

[Cheryl Jarl]

Good Luck, June!

[Gabrielle Powell]

You are so handy! I love the final result!

[Lora Bloomquist]

Thanks Gabrielle! It's just so nice to get a project done for my own house, and not have all the cool stuff go to the store! Thanks for reading.

[Faith Grant]

How cute! I'm sure she loves her new decoration!

[Lora Bloomquist]

Faith,
She is loving her teen room! I'm hoping to surprise her with a little Christmas decor, too!