I have wanted to make this head board for a while now, but I had to wait on my husband to do some cutting for me. I can use a few power tools, but some (like the jigsaw and circular saw) are best left in the hands of the more experienced.
I'm sure I could figure it out, and maybe one day I will, but for now, I'm happy to have my husbands help.
So, I found the shape I wanted on pinterest and had a piece of OSB cut down to size for a full bed. (about 56 inches. I wanted it to go a few inches past the bed on each side.) They did this at Home Depot for free.
Cost of OSB and 2 2x4's: $15
I was originally going to put foam in the middle of this and create a border with nail head trim around the "puffy middle". But I decided to go a different route after looking online at some other designs. But, I still needed the extra depth the 2x4's gave me on the sides so that I would have something to hammer the nail heads into. The OSB wasn't thick enough for that. I like how thick this is with the 2x4's, but you could use 1" dimensional lumber as well.
I covered the 'new' front with batting. I got the batting at Joann's. It was a queen size batting roll. I had thought about double layering, so I wanted to have enough. I went with one layer instead. Two layers would have been too thick for my staples after the fabric was added. And I was concerned that two layers would make my corners less sharp-looking.
Cost of batting: $14 (I downloaded the Joann's app while waiting in line at register and got a 40% off coupon)
After stapling the bejesus out of the batting, I laid out the fabric face down and aligned my board on top. I recruited the help of my ten year old for the remainder of this project. It was just too much for one set of hands.
I stood it up to staple the fabic. That's why I needed help holding it up so I could staple. The fabric wouldn't have been as smooth looking if I had kept it lying down.
This fabric is actually a curtain that I found at World Market. I new I wanted dark green velvet, but I couldn't find it at any fabric stores, and when I saw these, I knew they were perfect. But, there was only one left!
Cost of fabric: $17
The fabric was like 1 inch too short to wrap around the edge of the 2x4. I know, you would think that I would measure the fabric first and then cut my board, but that's not how I do things. I rarely do things in the correct order, I just get too excited.
And, asking my husband to cut down the board another inch was soooo not happening.
So I took my seam ripper and undid the seam. Then it fit perfectly. Thank God for seam rippers!! They are my favorite tool, especially since I tend to make this stuff up as I go, therefore making a lot of mistakes along the way:)
I got too involved in the next few steps and didn't take enough pics, but basically I stapled and stapled and stapled till my hand cramped.
Getting the fabric flat around the curve was difficult work. I think I may have thrown out a couple of inappropriate words. At least that's what my ten year old said. I don't remember, I was too busy tugging and stapling and sweating and tugging to pay attention.
After getting the edges as smooth as I could get them, taking a minute to cool down and apologizing for my scaring my child, I added nail head trim to the edge.
I read several blogs that said using individual nail heads was much nicer than the trim. (which is like a metal rope of nail heads that you only have to hammer in every fifth head) I agree that it would be more consistent to use individual heads. The color of the nail head that you hammer in is just a tad bit different from the rest. And if I weren't so lazy and impatient, I would have purchased individuals. But I am impatient, and I wanted to do this as inexpensively as possible.
So, I used the trim instead. It was the easiest part of the whole project. In fact, I had several feet left over and walked around my house looking for something else that needed nail head trim.
Several little things ended up with trim, whether they needed it or not, just because I could. :)
Cost of trim: $8 (again, because I had the app coupon)
And here it is all put together. I made the bed skirt and four of the pillows. I'm having my mom bring up another curtain that she found at her local World Market for the real bed skirt. This is just some fabric that I had to use in the interim. I used the cut-offs of the curtain for the edges of the skirt.
Sorry the pics aren't great. I used my iphone. Not a great photographer here! That is definitely on my to do list, take photography class.
Right now the head board isn't attached to the wall. It's sitting on a couple of 4 inch boxes that I had lying around. I had wanted it taller, but hubby has yet to get around to that. He seems to think it looks fine as it is, go figure. But, I eventually would like it to sit up a bit taller.
So total cost of head board: $54
Yay! And it's exactly what I wanted. Hope this was helpful, it's my first blog project. Next time, I'll take more pictures.
I'ld love to hear what you think and if you have any projects you're working on!!
No comments:
Post a Comment