DIY Headboard

There are few pieces of furniture that make you look like an adult more than a headboard. Mattresses on the frame (or worse, on the floor!) scream college to me and since we moved into the Behemoth I've been dying to turn our bedroom into an "adult" room.

I knew that my best option would be to DIY a headboard and thanks to Pinterest I found many wonderful options. I loved the look of an upholstered headboard and set about making one.


I measured the bed and cut a piece of craft paper to the length. I folded the craft paper in half and drew half of the design on the paper.

I cut the template out of paper & traced it on a sheet of 3/4" plywood.

Jus then cut the shape out with his jigsaw. (Apparently the kind people at Lowe's & Home Depot will do this for you as well)

After the headboard was cut out I used spray adhesive to attach a double layer of batting to the headboard.

The process slowed for a bit as I searched for a fabric I loved for the headboard. At first I was leaning towards an olive velvet but the fabric I found wasn't large enough for our very large headboard. I continued my search, but the price of fabric plus the limited options left me wishing for more.

I started thinking about other options and realized that a shower curtain would be enough fabric to completely cover the headboard and would give me a wider variety of colors & fabric options. Finally I found a yellow ombre shower curtain at Target that I adored. I washed & ironed the shower curtain.

After the adhesive dried I laid the headboard face down on the back of the shower curtain. I started at the top, pulling the fabric very tight and stapling the fabric to the board. (I wanted to start at the top in case there was a big issue I figured the bottom would be more forgiving since it would be behind the mattress.)

After the headboard was upholstered Jus added two 2x4s to the bottom and screwed them into the bed frame. 

And just like that (for less than $40) our bedroom feels 100x more grown up!

If you need better directions you can follow this video from Design*Sponge, but when it comes to choosing fabric I highly recommend looking for a cute shower curtain instead of spending the money expensive fabric.