Heralding the Headboard

Finally!  A headboard for the guest room!

Yes, friends, the day has finally come.  After many months of searching, sketching and planning, the upholstered headboard is finally finished!  You remember way back when, I asked you to vote for your favorite headboard, because the decision was making me crazy?  Well, the votes were almost unanimous, everyone loved the first option!  Which was this lovely creation:

Unfortunately, I didn’t stop to consider the ease of creating any of the designs in my poll.  And once you guys voted, well, how could I deny you the headboard of your choosing for our guest room?  You are my pool of potential guests after all! :)  So, Mama and I set out to make this fuzzy online inspiration photo (from Pottery Barn) a reality in true Guthrie fashion.  <—Guthrie being the other half of this Horvath’s life.  :)

Our first step was determining the right dimensions to compliment our full size guest bed.  We had a scrap piece of plywood left over from another headboard project that was just the right size, 58” wide (for a little overlap on the mattress), and at 48” high, no modifications were needed.  I drew off the corner curves and cut them with a jigsaw—my first experience using the jigsaw and I have to admit it was quite fun and easy, too! 

 

Then we cut four support braces for the back so the plywood wouldn’t flex too much.  These were simple 1x4’s cut to length and screwed on.

Now we were ready for cushioning!  We cut a piece of 2” foam exactly the size of our board and glued it on using spray adhesive.  Then we added strips of 1” foam cut to size and glued them down to the back edges (so the foam edge would wrap completely around the frame) and the sides so they would be perfectly smooth.  We cushioned all the way down to a few inches below where the mattress would hit the headboard so there wouldn’t be a visible line where the foam stopped.  We also added four inch strips on the edges (or “posts”) where the edges would show around the mattress.  That way the whole “post” of the headboard would be upholstered as well.  We later had to pry some of that foam off the posts to put in a 2x4 bracket piece that the bolts would fasten to.  Otherwise the whole headboard would have been held together through 2” of foam, a layer of batting and 1/2” plywood.  Not good.  A little extra wood added at the fastening point made for a lot more stability in the finished product.  We measured on the bed frame where the brackets would match up and put our wood piece in there.  Then I drilled holes through the 2x4 and plywood backer, so it would be all ready for bolts later.

  

Here is the completely cushioned headboard ready for fabric!  Notice that we hadn’t added the 2x4 pieces on the posts yet.

So, obviously, the third and final step was to cover the thing with fabric!  Artfully, of course.  Our design called for piping around a four-inch border.  First we planned the border pieces and the outer edge pieces.  They were piped and seamed together.  Then we measured for our center section and stitched it in. 

  

I’ll leave out the gory details, but this part was ridiculous!  A seemingly simple design turned into a frustrating ordeal.  Between the piping, the under layer of batting, shifty fabric (next time we are using real upholstery fabric that doesn’t have any stretch or give instead of soft chino), and the complexities of curves, angles, and corners, we were incredibly annoyed by the whole process.  I had long since given up on a successful completion but Mama would not be deterred.  After much fussing and re-cutting, she finally achieved the look we were going for.  And here it is in it’s new home:

   

Finito!

And just in time for our guests to arrive for Homecoming in a couple weeks.  I may have to try it out before they get here, it is so very soft and inviting.  The perfect place to kick back and read a good book.  With the window open and the glorious fall air rushing in.  Ahhhh…

Thanks for coming along on this guest room journey.  With the DIY light, upholstered headboard, and painting the closet off the list, I’m running out of things to do in here; guess I’ll just have to focus on another spot for a while. 

Come back soon for an update in the Den, as well as some fall decor!