The $10,000 Nursery: The DIY Upholstered Drop Cloth Headboard "Pottery Barn Style"

Do yourself a favor-- never, ever step foot in a Pottery Barn Kids store. You'll leave with unnecessary fantasies about oversized stuffed giraffes and searsucker monogrammed throw pillows. While I was browsing, I fell in love with an upholstered headboard and for ONLY $799 it could be all mine. http://www.potterybarn.com/products/raleigh-nailhead-bed-headboard/?cm_src=AutoRel


For literally a 10th of the price, my handy husband was able to make a very similar-style headboard.

Here's how he made it:

First, I measured how tall and long I wanted the headboard to be. For the width of the headboard, it needs to be the entire length of the mattress plus 1/2 inch extra for each side.   I wrote my measurements down and then went to Home Depot and purchased cheap plywood ($8.00) and a drop cloth ($9.99).  Home Depot cut my plywood for me for free using the measurements that I provided.  They will only cut straight lines not curved so you'll have to find someone with a jigsaw to help you cut the rounded lines.

Pace drew two curved lines on the plywood and then used the saw to cut them.

After getting the plywood in the shape we wanted our headboard to be, he attached a thick foam to the plywood (We bought the foam at Michael's when it was on sale for 50% off. I think we bought 3 yards for just under $30. You could probably also use a cheap foam mattress cover).  We read a lot about how to do this, and while many blogs suggested using a spray adhesive to stick the foam to the board, we thought that working with glue could get really messy.  Instead, we opted for our trusty friend... the staple gun. He covered the entire headboard including the edges and top.  We did not want to leave any hard places on the headboard that could potentially endanger a toddler.

Use sharp scissors or an electric knife

Pace folding the thick foam over the plywood

The covered plywood does not have to look perfect at this point.

 After Pace had the foam in place on the plywood, he wrapped batting around the entire thing.  It's important to pull it as tight as possible, and staple it around the back. The batting holds everything down and smoothes it out to give it an even shape. Batting is fairly inexpensive and can be found at most fabric stores usually for about $5/yard.

This is what your headboard should look like covered in foam and batting

Now that everything is in place and ready to be upholstered, it's time to bring in the drop cloth! We chose a drop cloth for my upholstery fabric because it's basically a thick, durable cotton canvas and it was the perfect color. And it was $10 for nearly 5 yards.

Pace cut the drop cloth material to size and wrapped it around the entire headboard, stapling in the back.

(Note: I thought very seriously about monogramming the headboard with a large white monogram.  It would have been relatively easy to do (a shop would have charged $10) but after some thought, I decided to leave it blank.  We may require our future kids to share a room and monogramming the headboard seemed limiting.

Now that the upholstery part of the headboard is done, it's time to affix the nailhead trim. And here's a little secret I've figured out. You can buy nailhead trim by the yard. The nailheads come in an attached strip, and you only have to hammer in every fifth hole. It's so much easier than hammering in a million individual nails, and it keeps them all in a straight line. I know many people prefer the look of individual nailheads, but for me this was such a timesaver! I bought out trim at Michael's using a 50% off coupon (cost: around $9) but Amazon also sells the trim and their site carries more variety: http://www.amazon.com/Dritz-44286-Upholstery-Nailhead-Silver/dp/B0060LDT2Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382153752&sr=8-1&keywords=nailhead+trim.

After a lot of trial and error, Pace figured out that you CANNOT use the nails that come with the kit on the trim--especially if you decide to use thick foam like we did.  Instead, you will need to find nails from Home Depot that fit inside the holes on the trim and use regular nails instead.  This provided us with a very secure and safe trim.

We are very pleased with our headboard--especially since this is our first time making this project.  If you decide to make a DIY headboard, you could experiment with the shape of the headboard (especially if your confident with a jigsaw!) and the type of fabric. 

 So, that's it! Our DIY dropcloth upholstered headboard...so easy and inexpensive! And it looks great in Elizabeth's nursery.

Cost: Around $75    Savings: $724