Latest DIY Projects - Upholstered Headboard & Custom Bedskirt

I'm currently reworking one of our guest bedrooms, and as some of our friends know it as, The Savannah Room. I've hung some cherished photos of Savannah, GA in this room because we loved living there so much. Other than these photos, it's been a hodge podge of random furniture and our old bed. Lately, one of our dogs Casey thinks it's her room and we find her snoring in there most nights. Basically, the room needs an overhaul and I've been slowly working away at it when I can find some free time and energy. A few weekends ago, I repainted the room in Benjamin Moore "timberwolf" color, this deep blueish gray color and against the existing white trim, it looks really good. I moved my black desk and knock-off Louis Ghost chair as well. So far so good. Pictures coming soon.

The first DIY project is the upholstered headboard. I keep seeing all these DIY bloggers talk about how easy it is and how much money they saved creating a custom headboard. Centsationgirl.com had a great step-by-step description of how to do it, so I said, "what the heck, I'll give it a try." Not alone of course, I had to recruit my super handy Dad to lend a hand. He happened to have the perfect piece of scrap plywood in his garage. One sunday afternoon we sketched out the overall design and he cut the piece of plywood for me. Next I found some clearance beige fabric during a visit to Jo Ann fabrics. I figured going with a neutral fabric was a good idea in case I ever decide to change the palette in this room, which I'm sure will happen more than once. So last weekend, my dad came by with his high powered staple gun. I bought a package of quilt batting and some upholstery nail heads to add the final detail.

STEP 1: Lay your piece of plywood over the quilt batting, used for extra cushion and the outside fabric. the size of the plywood is the width of your bed and the height can be any height you want, depending on the look you want. 

STEP 2: Wrap the batting at the fabric over the plywood edges to being stapling.

STEP 3: Staple the batting and fabric and work your way around the headboard. Make sure to pull the fabric tight to prevent wrinkles in the fabric on the good side.

Here's a photo of the headboard with the fabric all stapled and ready to go. Not bad, right?



STEP 4:  Use a rubber mallet to hammer in the upholstery nailheads. Lightly tap the nail into place then take one quick, strong hammer at the nail to finish it off. Lesson learned, try and get your hands on nailhead ribbon, it comes in a rolled up strip. Much easier to work with. I really had to concentrate on lining up these nailheads because they were individual nails.



Here's the finished product. I'm pretty happy with it. The final step is go to Home Depot to buy heavy duty hooks to hang the headboard on the wall behind the bed like a picture frame.



My second project took me about an hour and I love how it looks! In the Savannah room, I had this light gray, flimsy bedskirt that just wasn't doing it for me. I always wanted a patterned bedskirt to add some texture to the overall look of the bed, but those are expensive. I went to fabric.com and bought some bold gray and white Greek key-esque fabric. I used the iron-on hem tape to adhere the new fabric onto the existing bedskirt. Here's the are a few photos of the whole process: