2015/06/12

Quest post: Petra´s DIY Headboard

Hi you! Nice to see you here again :). Today we have here a dear friend of mine, Petra. She recently decided to test her construction skills and I can say the outcome is amazing! I´m glad to have her here to explain how she, for the first time in her life, built a headboard! 
To start with, I should tell you that I have never done anything like this project before.  I have no wood working experience and we have only very limited basic tools.  For us to even consider making our own DIY headboard was a bit of a leap of faith!

After just over a year of living in our new home, I was ready to tackle our master bedroom decor.  The room has a nice big window and great natural light but rather dated huge rolling mirrored closet doors trimmed in brass finish.  

I had purchased a new duvet cover that I thought I would love but it never really felt right in the space.  Then to try and salvage it, I added contrasting colored toss pillows that really did not work.  The room was certainly not working for me!



What I wanted most of all to transform this space was a HEADBOARD!  I always wanted a headboard but they are expensive and my go-to cheap furniture store (Ikea) did not have any models that fit our home and our Honest Charm style (think modern cottage).  So I resorted to propping the pillows up as high as I could get them.  Yep, I wasn’t fooling anyone! 

Since I was temporarily unemployed, there was really no budget allowance for furniture shopping.  What I had for pretty much the first time in my life was plenty of extra time.  So that is why we started considering making our own headboard. 

Plus I had my support team at School of Decorating to bounce ideas off.  These ladies were so encouraging to me.  They really believed I could do this!  I was SoD member Rose who helped me see the reason why I never loved that duvet.  It was a lot of pattern for my taste and the huge mirrored doors multiplied the pattern so that it just overwhelmed the space.  I knew my new bedding would need to tone it down.

I did tons of research on the web and found lots of great tutorials.  Ana White has some amazing examples but the construction seemed difficult with our limited tools and the styles were not quite right.  I found a few examples where people built the headboard right onto the wall like a modified board and batten.  I like that simplicity but worried that I would never really like the look.

Finally after many weeks of planning, we decided to make a freestanding headboard of our own design.  Since keeping the budget as low as possible, I planned to make the headboard out of the least expensive wood I could buy.  It also meant we could not buy any extra tools to put it together.  We only used a super old circular saw and belt sander borrowed from my mother in law and a very inexpensive drill we had purchased a few years prior.  I did buy a carpenters square to help line things up mostly because I could not figure out how to do it without one.

Before we started on the project, I had to remove the wall sconces put up by the prior owners.  They were really stuck to the wall and had cord covers attached with adhesive that did quite a bit of damage when they came off.  That was a great time to hone my puttying and sanding skills as the headboard would take lot of sanding!

I measured and measured again and sketching out the plans.  Our bed is a Cal King size by the way.  Then we were off to the Home Depot!  I bought the cheapest 2x4s that they had and inspected a big stack to try and get the least wonky looking ones they had.  Since we were making it up as we went along, I just bout the 2x4s first and went back later for the large plywood piece and the final 1x4 that became the top.

 

Hopefully these photos give you an idea of how we put the pieces together following my plan.  The very last piece we put on was the 1x4 that topped the headboard.  As you can see, it was a whole family project.  My son and husband enjoyed using the drill together!  Since we did not have a fancy kreg drill, we selected steel mending plates and brackets to connect the 2x4s.  Once we had the plywood back on, it held the structure together so the 2x4 connecters did not need to be structural.

 

Then it was my turn to do the rest.  First there was lots and lots of sanding.  Then I filled all the holes and dings in the wood with wood filler.  Then I caulked all of the joints.  Jackie’s tutorial on her board and batten wall was extremely helpful to me.  I did not realize I needed to caulk and it made a huge impact in the finished piece!  School of Decorating for the win!  The best part of the caulk was that it camouflaged the very uneven cuts in the piece.  Since we used a very basic circular saw, the pieces that were supposed to be the same size were off by as much as a quarter of an inch in some places.

I applied two coats of primer and two coats of teal paint (Dunn Edwards By the Bayou).  We were really impressed with the results.  It was exactly what we had envisioned!


Finally we carried it up the stairs.  My husband assured me it would fit up the stairs since it was smaller than the Cal King mattress.  I understood his logic but I was anxious to make sure that it would actually fit up the stairs.  Yes it fit!  We attached it to the metal bed frame with some large bolts and washers.  I also put some felt pads on the back of the headboard where it would touch the wall. 

When I added the receipts, the total project came in at about $125.  That included all of the wood, screws, metal brackets, caulk, wood filler, paint, and painting supplies.  Certainly we put in quite a bit of labor and sweat!  If you have any specific questions on our construction details, please let me know and I am happy to help answer them.
So, what do you think? Amazing, or what! I´ve dreamed of a headboard for our bedroom for some time now, and this would look so good! The best part is, that Petra promised to come back and share some details on their new bedding and a full bed reveal! So stay tuned!

I have mentioned a few times already our outdoor spaces and next time I´m going to share an inspirational mood board and reveal what I have in mind and what I have already done outdoors ;) So see you here again :)

Warmly,
Jenni

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