Tutorial: How to make an Upholstered Headboard

There are tons of tutorials out there on how to make your own upholstered headboard- they all vary depending on the shape of the headboard, whether you want tufting or not, how to attach it to your bedframe, etc.  So I'm going to show you how I decided to make it, using different techniques from various tutorials and combining them to get exactly what we wanted.

Step 1:  Gather your supplies.  To make this King size headboard you will need:

*A piece of 3/4" thick plywood, 24" x 72 (you will have to buy a whole piece, which is 4' x 8'- just have Home Depot or Lowe's cut it down to the right size for you and you'll have some extra pieces to take home)- $26.47

*2" thick High Density foam, 24" x 72" (use a 50% off coupon or wait until it goes on sale at Joann's)- $28.98
*A Package of quilt batting (I purchased a twin size 72" x 90")- $11.99
*Spray adhesive- $0, already owned
*Staple Gun, $0, already owned
*Button kit (Joann's)- $3.87
*3 washers- $.29
*upholstery needle (long)- $4.39
*heavy duty string/thread- $0, already owned (used toptitching thread)
*fabric (at least 36" x 84")- $19.99
*French cleat (found at Home Depot or Lowe's)- $14.97
*Jig saw- $0, borrowed
*Power drill- $0, already owned

Step 2:  Determine what shape you want your headboard to be.  Mark with a thick line so you'll know where to cut and then grab your jig saw.  Since this bedroom is all about playing tricks on your eye to make it appear larger, I cut out the top two corners to make the headboard look narrower than it really is. 

Step 3:  Pre-drill the holes for the tufting.  Use a 1/8"- 1/4" drill bit, you'll thank me later.  You want these holes to be large enough for an upholstery needle to fit through.  Also, it will be easier to find the hole from the front side when you're attaching the buttons since you can't see the hole once the foam and batting is attached. 

For this headboard, I used 3 buttons.  I wanted the buttons to line up with the design on my fabric, so I had a little more of a challenge figuring out where to space them.  For your headboard, you may just want to evenly space them.

Step 4:  Attach the foam using spray adhesive.  Start on one side and spray a section of the wood, lay the foam down and press to adhere.  Keep moving in small sections until you've finished.

Step 5:  Cut the foam from the corners.  I used a fairly sharp serrated knife, but if you have an electric knife they work great.

Step 6:  Wrap with the batting.  On a clean surface, spread out the batting and put the foam side down.  You'll want to trim around the headboard to get rid of some of the excess batting.  I left about 6" all the way around.  Starting in the middle on of the long sides, place a few staples to secure.  Move over to the opposite side and staple.  Then do each of the short sides like this.  Lastly, go all the way around all four sides and finish stapling.  Do your best to make the corners neat and tidy.

Step 7:  Wrap with your fabric.  For my fabric, I used a 60" x 84" tablecloth by Dwell Studio for Target:

I wanted to center three of the medallions, with a tuft in the middle of each one.  Normally this is the step where you would staple your fabric to the headboard in the same way as the batting and then tuft.  However, since I wanted my medallions to be centered with a tuft in the middle, I decided to tuft first before stapling.  This gave me more flexibility to make sure those medallions were centered over the pre-drilled holes.   

Place your fabric wrong side up and lay your headboard batting side down.  Cut the excess, leaving about 6" all around.  Using your long upholstery needle and heavy duty thread, start from the back side and poke your needle through to the front side.  Once I found the middle of the medallion, I threaded on one of my fabric covered buttons and then pushed the needle back down to the back side again.  On the back side, pull your tuft as tight as you want it and then using a small washer, tie it off. 

Once I got all three of the medallions tufted, I went ahead and stapled the fabric around the headboard. 

Now it's time to hang it.  Have you ever seen these at your home improvement store?

It's a French Cleat, and they're used all the time in the hotel interior design industry, but for some reason they're often overlooked by DIY'ers.  If I didn't know what they were, I'd probably overlook them myself, but once you use one, you'll see why they're so great.  The one we used was made to hold something that weighs 200 pounds, and this headboard weighs far less than that.    

A French Cleat has two parts- one that attaches to the wall, and one that attaches to the back of whatever you're hanging.  The piece that is on the back of your headboard, slips onto the piece attached to the wall.  If you're trying to imagine how this works, this image reminds me of the basic concept:

Imagine the bottom hand as the piece that's attached to the wall, and imagine the left hand locking down over it.  It's a funny image to use, but it really does a good job at visually explaining how a French cleat works.

Here's the piece attached to the back of the headboard (we centered it and placed it towards the top of the headboard):

And here's the piece attached to the wall (we were able to get 2 screws into the studs):

And a side view:

See how the top is angled outward?  Then the headboard sits down on top so the two pieces interlock.

  

Here are a couple more space-saving tricks we used:

-Because this headboard does not have legs, and since we hung the headboard just a tad higher than the mattress, we were able to push our mattress all the way to the wall and therefore save probably close to 6 inches or so.

-We also do not use a metal bed frame, and instead put the box springs directly on the floor.  This also eliminates a lot of movement if one of us rolls over at night, we sleep so much better because we don't feel every toss and turn the other person makes.

-Our Eastern King mattress is really approximately 76"-78" wide.  I  purposely made the headboard 72" wide so the bottom corners would not stick out on the sides of the mattress.  This way it looks like it's upholstered all the way to the floor. 

-We used a black fitted sheet to cover the box springs, and at a quick glance it appears to be a platform bed.

So who's ready to try making one yourself?