We’ve been married for 4 years, and lived in our first home for that same amount of time. I have scoured garage sales, craigslist etc looking for a king size headboard. Everything that I found was not listed at a “DIY price.” So then I searched Pinterest and had plans to get a large piece of wood, cover it in batting and then top it with fabric. But even that seemed to have a high price tag. So my plans for a headboard got put on hold… until last month.
Tony has been helping his parents get their home ready to sell. They happened to have an old trundle bed which had two mattresses, and two “box springs.” I used air quotes because they are not what you would expect from a box spring, only measuring about 2-3 inches in height. Tony put it together and try as he might, even when the top mattress was raised as high as the bed would allow, the bottom mattress and box spring wouldn’t fit. So this box spring was set aside.
When I first saw it, I got the idea that I could recover it to make a headboard. But would be be the right length? After measuring… I was thrilled that it was! Now what fabric would I use? Our bedroom has painted dark gray furniture with brushed nickel hardware, and our bedding is ivory and dark gray. Our original curtains were a dark gray tiny waffle pattern. I replaced those a couple of years ago with some large ivory and light gray stripe to let more light in. So our original curtains have lived in a storage bin,, just in case I wanted to use them again.
Since we are going to Ireland, and preparing to move, we have been on a bit of a budget- so a cheap fabric was essential. I decided to dip into my stash of curtains because what is cheaper than using something that you have?
All I did to the curtain was cut off the very top of the curtain to get rid of the metal grommets. Then I laid it out in the middle of our living room and set the box spring on top.
Then I used my second favorite DIY tool, (the first being the glue gun) my staple gun. I used heavy duty staples (they are sold right next to the staple guns in any craft store) to secure the fabric as tightly to the box spring as possible. It took me less than an hour to staple it all the way around. I loved it- but it needed a little flare.
I used a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby to buy this package of nail head trim. This is the easy way to do nail head trim- just nailing every fifth nail instead of every nail. It was a little stiff to use- but in the end I flattened it out enough to get it lined up the way I wanted. I worked with small sections of it, because since it was rolled in a circle it kept wanting to curl if it was too long.
Frustratingly enough, it didn’t work out quite like I wanted. When I went to nail in that fifth nail, it didn’t stay in place. I think the nails were a bit too short to get through the fabric and batting and wood inside the box spring. I would get a nail to stay in place, and then as I worked on the next nail, the first nail would come undone from the force of me nailing the second one. I was so frustrated. After fighting with it for far too long… I determined that I only had one option. It wasn’t ideal, but I decided to hot glue the nail head trim to my fabric. The problem with hot glue in this situation is that the nails which would have been nailed and laid flush against my fabric, now seemed to stand up taller than the rest of them. Was I happy with it? Not thrilled, but I just had to switch my mindset from a flush nail head trim to this one. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist with anything I do!
But… the bottom line is: it was basically free! And we now have a headboard. Instead of laying this flat against the floor, or securing it to the wall (scary!) I decided to merely set this headboard down on top of our box springs for our bed. Then we slid the mattress all the way up against the headboard to stabilize it to the wall, and it ended up being the perfect height.
What would I do differently? Using my existing materials, I would have steered clear of the nail head trim that requires nailing. There actually are faux nail head trims that are strictly for gluing, sold in by the roll in the pillow/curtain trim aisle. That way the nails would lay flush with the fabric, and not have a height difference between the nailed one and the others. If you are going to do a board, covered in thick batting- be aware that your nails for your nail head trim might not be able to reach your board deep enough to stay put!
