Framed Upholstered Headboard
Wrapping up week three of the one room challenge and I’m super excited to share this new addition to my son’s bedroom! This week I’m sharing a DIY framed upholstered headboard. The bed frame is updated as well with a good Ikea Hack. Read on for the headboard tutorial and check out the bed hack link at the bottom of this post!
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Plan, Plan, and Re-Plan
My initial plan was to build my son bed from scratch. As it got closer to time to actually go buy supplies, I hesitated. I started stalking a couple of other websites like Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware teen and noticed in my search that many of the kid beds were essentially storage platform beds with a headboard. We already had a storage platform bed from Ikea so I started brainstorming and ultimately decided to build a new headboard and just update the bed frame with a good IKEA hack!
Rough Inspiration
Measurements in this post are for a queen sized bed, which is typically 60 inches wide and this is what I used for the width of my headboard. In regards to the height of your headboard, you can essentially make it whatever height you want. I settled on 46 inches in height which works pretty well for the space. His old headboard was about the same or maybe a couple of inches shorter and I didn’t want to do anything too, too tall.
Building the Wooden Frame
To start, I built the outer wood frame that you see surrounding the upholstered portion of the headboard. The side pieces are 46 inches tall and the top and bottom horizontal pieces are 54 inches in length. These are just standard 2 x 4’s from my local Home Depot.
The top piece is assembled flush to the top of the vertical boards and attached using wood glue and pocket holes. The bottom horizontal board is attached about 10 inches from the floor. Again, here you can customize to make whatever height you would like. I stained this using a mixture of Varathane Briarsmoke and Weathered Oak.
Upholstered Portion
Next, it’s time to assemble the upholstered portion of the headboard. I chose to make my frame and upholstered piece separate so that in the future, I can replace the fabric if I’d like.
The backing of the upholstered piece is three-quarter inch plywood that I happened to have on hand from a previous project. Half-inch plywood would probably be thick enough but you really wouldn’t want to go much thinner than that as it could bow or warp. I used three separate pieces and attached them to each other with pocket holes and wood glue to get the width and height that I wanted. But again, that is only because I was using scraps and trying to avoid purchasing a new piece of plywood. If you do not have scrap plywood laying around, you can go to your local hardware store and pick up a relatively cheap piece as it will not be visible once built. You can also ask them to cut your plywood down to size right in the store, which is helpful!
I cut the plywood about 2 inches shorter on all sides than the outer frame. This allowed me to still attach from the back without the plywood being visible from the sides. I then measured out the opening of the frame to determine how much foam and fabric I would need. I laid the frame on top of the plywood and roughly drew a square where I wanted the upholstery to go.
Adding the Cushion and Fabric
Using a foam egg crate, twin size, from Walmart I measured and cut the foam to size. A little spray adhesive was applied to the plywood and then the foam was placed on top. Batting was then applied over top of the foam and stapled around the edges. Lastly I attached the fabric and started stapling from the center out to make sure it was nice and snug. Everything was stapled and all of the edges of the fabric and batting were trimmed.
My fabric here is a gray linen from fabric.com. I know, I know, it looks blue. That is what happens when you order fabric online. Luckily I still liked it! I think a drop cloth would be the perfect neutral fabric for this if you are interested in that look.
Assembling the Framed Upholstered Headboard
Finally, it is time to join the pieces together! The frame was placed face down and the upholstered plywood put on top, also face down. Using clamps and screws, the plywood piece was screwed to the back of the frame. There was actually a point where a few staples on one side were visible so I had to unscrew everything and move it over slightly. It was very easy to remove this plywood piece which was exactly my goal so I could change the fabric in the future if need be (assuming my young boy will make it disgusting somehow).
And with that, the diy upholstered headboard with wood frame is done! I took it upstairs and attached it to the back of my bed base just using screws through the legs. Super easy!
Click here for the platform bed IKEA hack that I built to finish off this awesome bed with framed upholstered headboard. Also, please make sure to check out all the other one room challenge featured and guest participants. There are some pretty amazing room renovations going on!
Looking for other upholstered headboard ideas?! I’ve got an awesome diamond tufted headboard tutorial post as well!
