Good afternoon! I had some tech difficulties this morning; sorry for the late post. I'm considering switching from Squarespace to Wix to host my blog; if anyone has great advice or tips on that, please let me know! Anyway, let's get back to the issue at hand. I mentioned that we're working to de-beachify our bedroom, and to that end, we've already DIY'ed all over this town. This August house tour shot of our bedroom pretty much sums up the cottage theme:

Which is totally fine, but feels a little out of place in our Brooklyn apartment. I wanted to keep the stuff I love, including and especially the feeling of serenity, but make this space feel a bit more us. To that end, I switched out the lamps with some inky black ones, brought in some plants and books and DIY art, and, over the weekend, finished a new headboard - for free.

It started with this box support, from someone's refrigerator. If you've ever had large furniture or appliances delivered, you've seen these box supports, made typically with particle board and sometimes wood. I saw this one in someone's recycling pile and immediately thought headboard. I brought it home, ensconced it safely in my craft closet, and waited several months until I had time to get to it. That time came this weekend. I was pretty adamant that I wanted this project to be free, so I decided to use my foam scraps from a long ago bench project rather than purchase new.

This pile doesn't look all that promising, but I knew that I didn't need my end result to be perfect, because I planned to drape a heavy duty blanket/rug over the finished product, which would hide any flaws. If you do want a smooth end result, and don't just have random foam scraps lying around, you can buy foam at any fabric and craft store, or you can save a little money and buy a twin-sized mattress pad, which is what I'm working with here.

I hot-glued my scraps to the frame. You can also, if you're working with big enough pieces, wrap your frame in foam and staple tightly all the way around. I just pieced together what I had, with my end result looking like this:

Looks great, I know. No worries: the next step is to actually "upholster" the thing. I rummaged around in my fabric stash until I settled on a white fabric shower curtain. I wanted this headboard to basically serve as a support for my blanket (which I was not going to ruin by stapling it to anything) so the white really worked for me, to keep things low-key. But I recommend going nuts on this front; it's a small area and amount of fabric, so you can go wild and even splurge a bit on the good stuff but not end up spending too much. And, if you get tired of it, you can always just cover it up with more fabric. Anyway, I took my frame and fabric to my highly private workshop and set to work stapling the doubled-up fabric all the way around my frame.

Start off by only stapling one staple per side, and maybe one or two in the corners, to make sure everything looks smooth and even, before stapling in the remaining 1,017 staples.

Done. I trimmed the excess fabric, and gave my 2 x 4s a coat of white paint. You can see that I didn't even bother doing the whole things - just the portion of the boards that might be visible. About those 2 x 4s: That's what I use to hold up the headboard. I often see upholstered headboards mounted to the walls on brackets, or attached to the bedframe. For years now, we've been using these makeshift headboards that I attach to two 2 x 4s, and then prop against the wall. The weight of the bed pushed against the boards keeps everything in place, and we've never had a problem. I find this solution to be super renter-friendly and easy. I also attach my boards to my headboard by screwing them in, which makes for an easily-collapsible, adjustable headboard. (Wood glue and nails would be much more permanent). I didn't take a picture of attaching my 2 x 4s to the headboard, but I did take one of removing those same 2 x 4s from the ladder we used to use as a headboard, so here you go:

Can you see what's going on here? I just screwed these boards into the ladder, which is exactly what I did with my new upholstered version. Then I propped the new headboard up against the wall and held it in place by pushing the bed against it.

Here you can see how crappy my headboard looks. But here you can see how awesome it looks:

I wanted a cushioned frame on which to hang my fabric, and I got it! I also think that my headboard could easily be added to, if I wanted to wrap another layer of foam around the whole thing and give it another go sometime - so though it's a little less than lump-free perfection, I'm really happy with how it turned out. The size and height of this headboard are also really nice and make a nice change in the room. And, doing this frees up my ladder for a fun new role in our kitchen. So, the fun in our room continues. New lamps, new headboard, check and check. Looking into new curtains...did you have any thoughts on these blue ones? I'm also considering just white on white on white...Check out the shot below, where I've clipped a bunch of fabrics I had around up and am trying to decide. Holla if you have a strong opinion either way. Or in another direction entirely. Thanks for reading and I'll be back!