January 24, 2011

DIY "Headboard" (AKA Easiest Project Ever)

Returning to the guest room (sorry if you're sick of hearing about it)...there has been a lot of action going on in here recently.  No, not that kind (if your mind went there too we probably share the same middle school sense of humor)...the store bought kind.  I've purchased bedding ($40 from Wal-Mart!), a fun throw blanket ($30 on clearance from CB2), a pillow ($10 at Target), and an adorable canary tealight holder that I couldn't resist ($7 from CB2).  With all these elements in place, the room is really starting to become what I had hoped it would (YAY!). 
The next step is dressing up the walls, starting with the wall the bed is actually on.  I felt like a headboard would fit this room perfectly, but there were a couple problems with the whole headboard idea: 1. the bed is not technically ours, so any permanent change to it is not possible and 2. we're attempting to do this room with as little money spent as possible.  After much pondering/research, I think I came up with a pretty good solution.  I decided to cover some painter's canvases with fabric, and hang them behind the bed to resemble a headboard. 
The hardest part of this whole process was picking out a fabric.  Colton and I strolled the rows of Joann's Fabrics for what seemed like an eternity searching for a teal/blue/peacock that would match my Rendezvous Bay wall color.  At one point, I debated just going with a yellow, black, or white instead (as finding my first choice was proving difficult and baby boy was beginning to lose patience with me), but in the end, I really wanted to repeat the teal color to make it feel more consistent.  I chose a fabric that admittedly I don't love, but it was the only one that wasn't too blue or too green.  The good news is that it only cost $5.29 for the two yards, so if I find something better one day, I can just cover over it because this was THE easiest project I have ever tackled (thank goodness after my stenciling adventure last weekend).
First, I gathered my supplies:
  • about 2 yards of fabric
  • 3 painter's canvases (luckily I had two already from a painting adventure gone wrong, so I only had to purchase 1)
  • glue gun
  • scissors

To make my headboard, I laid the canvas on top of the fabric with about an extra inch on all sides.

 I cut out the fabric and then whipped out my handy glue gun.  Starting on a short side, I glued down the fabric.  I then repeated it on the long side of the canvas.  For the two other sides, I just made sure to pull the fabric tight before glueing it down.  When I got to corner, I just pretended it was wrapping paper.  After about 2 minutes, I had my panels.
The next step was aligning them just right and figuring out where/how to hang them to the brick wall.  I had purchased mounting squares, but they didn't seem to want to stick with the wall.  Luckily, there were some holes already drilled in to the brick from the previous owners.  The holes were a little higher than I wanted, but they'll work for now.  Here's the finished product:


Tell me what you think.  I have debated adding a few more to the top to give it more presence.  I have also debated raising them up a bit more and spreading them out, which would obviously make them look less like a headboard, but it's obviously not a functional headboard anyway!

4 comments:

  1. Cute! Love the bedding. You could always add smaller canvases wrapped in different fabric in the middle of the larger ones if you wanted to add something.

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  2. LOVING your redo...so simple, but beautiful - and LOVE that brick wall!

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  3. I really like this headboard idea! I have seen it with one larger canvas, but I hadn't thought about using 3 smaller ones - that would be easier and probably cheaper to deal with! It looks really nice and your dog sure seems to approve :-) Visiting from Thrifty Decor Chick!

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  4. So completely brilliant! I featured you on Momcaster because I just love what you did here: http://momcaster.com/2012/01/08/make-a-headboard/

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