{guest post}DIY headboard from fabric squares

Happy Friday!!

Today I am pleased to bring you a guest post from Rebecca, a local Interior Designer.  Even though her design degree is from Florida and mine is from Florida State, we have managed to look past our differences and become great friends.  We have also been in small group together and served together in a Design4 Good project, which was awesome.  So here is her post, an awesome headboard tutorial. I love it love it love it.

Thanks Rebecca!

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About six months ago Christine asked me to do a guest post on her blog – very exciting! (Unfortunately, I have procrastinated and I am just now getting around to it…) I was trying to save a very special DIY project for this occasion – A HEADBOARD!! My husband, Josh and I decided to try and tackle this one together. We decided to try to imitate a technique called a “pixilated headboard.” Here are some examples below -

(image credit here)

(image credit)

Josh and I are by no means professional DIY headboard contractors… however we decided to give it a whirl.  Here are the steps that we took – We took a measurement of what we were working with.  Our “elegantly themed ” Gator Guest Room has a full size bed and as you can see from the picture below… the headboard really needed some help.  We took a measurement of the width of our mattress – 54” and added 3” to make it 57” (to allow for a little overlap.)  We decided to go for the look of individually upholstered squares.  It was decided that 6 squares would be sufficient for this project – we divided 57” by 3 to get 19” squares.  This gives us 2 rows of 3 squares.

The first step in the process was to gather all of the supplies that we needed:

-        3/8” MDF Board cut to 19” squares (the wonderful Lowe’s associate completed this for us).  We actually purchased (3) 24”x48” pieces as this was much easier to deal with – he also gave us a discount on the MDF as it was damaged on the ends – which he was able to cut off when for us.

-        1” foam rolls- (2) 30”x60” rolls from Hobby Lobby

-        Batting Roll – also from Hobby Lobby

-        Textured Velvet fabric – Calico Corners (courtesy of my former employee discount) – I would suggest a heavy upholstery fabric such as velvet for this….

-        Staple Gun (borrowed from my friend Christine)

-        Olfa box cutter knife (left over from my architecture studio days at UF)

-        Scissors

-        Needle-Nose pliers (to pull staples out of back of MDF that do not go all the way through)

-        Industrial strength Velcro – also from Lowe’s

To begin, cut the 1” foam, batting and fabric out into 6 squares.  I used the pre-cut MDF 19” squares as templates to cut the foam to the exact same size using the box cutter.  You can just estimate the batting and fabric squares… you need enough room to be able to wrap each square and staple on the back – approximately 24-26” square should do the trick.

The next step in this process is the most tedious… wrapping first the batting and then the fabric around the MDF and 1” foam and then stapling on the back.  This quickly became a two man job as I held the fabric down and pulled it tight and Josh stapled.  The corners are a little tricky here too – you don’t want them to buldge out and so you have to take the time to wrap them neatly like a fancy Christmas present.  There really is not a specific method that we used here… just kept trying until it worked – you can always take staples out and try again if the fabric is not laying down correctly.  Repeat this for all 6 squares.

The final step in this process is figuring out your method of hanging or rather attaching the headboard squares to wall.  We opted for industrial strength Velcro (located at your local home improvement store as well).  We decided that even though this may leave a few blemishes on the wall… when we move out of our apartment we will have to patch and repaint the accent wall anyway so it was not a big deal.  We cut the Velcro into strips approximately 4” long and placed two strips on the back of each square.

The Velcro made it nice when we were trying to attach the squares to the wall… it made it much easier to hang and adjust as needed.

When it comes to hanging things… I more or less just rely on my experience and “good eye” and I rarely ever measure anything before hammering a nail or in this case, pealing the sticky backing off and attaching it to the wall.  I am a perfectionist with a lot of things – but for whatever reason, this is not one of them.  I just go for it and then if it is a little off you can always adjust.  (In this case – this was great for the Velcro.)

One thing that I did pay attention to (and this is where the perfectionist/ designer in me appears) was the knap or direction of the fabric – most upholstery fabrics have a directional hand to them.  In this case, you can clearly see the directional changes of the fabric when the light hits it however in some cases you may just have to rub your hand across in both directions to tell a difference.  I chose to alternate the direction of the knap when we hung the panels in order to create more interest and seem a little checker-boardish without being too tacky.  I love the way it turned out.

Josh and I have been very pleased with the finished results!  For our first attempt at making a head board at least…  I am very happy with the style of the head board and the fabric choice.  I think it is much more suitable to the room yet is still neutral in case we one day decide to use it in a different scheme that does not include orange and blue.

Thanks so much for letting me guest blog, Christine.  I have had tons of fun!