Seriously? This took you 5 years?

Well maybe not 5 years, but it’s been a while. I’ve a kind of “live with it until it starts speaking to you kind of person.” I’m not quite sure when it happened, but our headboard definitely jumped the speaking phase and went right to taunting me. At first I thought it was just my imagination, but it didn’t matter which sheet set I used, of often I switched out the comforter, or how many decorative pillows I bought, it still taunted me. (Because of this, I have also learned that I am not a fan of decorative pillows on a bed!) It’s a tall headboard with baton detailing and well, that’s about it. While I still like the lines of it, but it’s just turned into a large deep chocolate brown piece of furniture. Much like the rest of our bedroom suite, but as only half of a 2 person relationship, this is where the art of compromise comes into play. So the idea of painting or restaining was ruled out. More so due to the sheer weight of the furniture (we are talking about needing-to-hire-some-guys-to-move-it-all-down-a-flight-of-stairs-out-to-the-deck-and-back kind of heavy!) And really? Dominick was opposed to the painting/restaining idea from the start so I waited until I was struck with some divine inspiration or something…

Jump to the present day, or if you are looking at a calendar, 5 years later.

I’m hooked on a blog called YoungHouseLove (one of my many lovely finds via HGTV magazine) and there’s a post about reupholstering a Craigslist rocking chair. Hello divine inspiration! Whodathunk that you can reupholster with cardboard!

Yeah, you read that right. Cardboard!

But why not use cardboard? I knew that painting/restaining were out and I needed to find a solution that was semi-permanent and when we/he/I got sick of the fabric I could swap it out. A couple of huge free boxes from work and I had my back board ready. Next stop – fabric!

Oh fabric! How you are the death of me! Shopping for fabric is like shopping for shoes and trying to pick out the right gelato flavor. You have to try and sample everything. It must look and feel just right. The color, the texture. It to be just. right. This was honestly the longest part of this project. I’m picky and and even though this project was super simple, I didn’t want to just throw any ol’ fabric up there. I was going to wake up to this every morning afterall! Sure I spent quite a few hours in my local Joanne’s Fabrics and countless more online pouring over prints, but nothing really caught my eye. Or at least anything that I would take home and show Dominick.

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

As my hobbit-esque quest for fabric continued, I got my next edition of a HGTV magazine (recognize a theme yet?), I stumbled across a slight blurb about fabric.com and thought, “Oooh! I need to check this out!” (Yes, I know this it kinda goes against the “touch and feel” part of buying fabric, but behold! They have swatches!)

I found this, this, this, and this before I fell in love with this. And better yet, Dominick liked it too! Well… it was more of a “hey do you like this?” and not a “hey, I’m gonna redo our headboard. What do you think of this?” kind of question. After seven years, when it comes to my DIY projects, I’ve learned that some things just need to have a simple level of buy in cause with some things he’s a finished project kind of guy (but I’ll get to his final comment about this later). Yes, I know that my Monroe Murcury/Oatmeal fabric wasn’t on the cheap side ($12.98 a yard = yowzers!), but it was definitely less then the $24.98 a yard for the fabric that sorta liked at Joanne’s. So I guess could totally justify it! 😉

My List

I have lists about lists. As in I carry around a notebook and keep lists on my phone. My list for this project?

Cardboard? Check. (and it was free!)
Fabric? Check. (not so free but oh so beautiful!)
Duct tape? Check. (wait…duct tape?)
Velcro strips? Check. (you’ll see)
Staple gun with 1/4” staples? Check.
Scissors? Check.
Measuring tape? Check.
Pencil? Check.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Now that I had my fabric and the rest of the items on my list, I just needed to implement my plan.

The headboard has great bones. I just needed to add some blush and lipstick to glam it up a bit. There are 3 insets across the top (18 1/4 x 5 5/16″), two larger ones below (27 3/4 x 28 1/2″) and each is 5/8″ deep. I know that the two larger ones don’t look that big, but our mattress and boxspring are rather high.

For each nook, I cut out a piece of cardboard to fit inside.

I cut each a tad bit shorter to compensate for the added width and bulk the batting and material would add, but with the extra weight on the cardboard the last thing I wanted was for it to start bowing or sagging. So for the bottom pieces, I enlisted the help of duct tape. Besides with sizes like this, I had to include flaps and seams to make sure that I cutout was big enough, so the cardboard tended to want to go all bendy.  To make the bigger pieces more rigid, I added duct tape, like so…

Sadly I ran out of duct tape and had to switched to packing tape, but I figured no one would ever see this, so who cares what the pretty factor was! (and then I go and add this picture into my blog! Ha!)

Next came the batting. I used hi-loft batting because I wanted a fuller look without having to use extra batting. I was worried about having a depth of only 5/8″ and the headboard looking “stuffy” instead of “chic”. At the most, I figured two layers of hi-loft would be my best bet. I stuck with just one.

I cut the batting to be roughly 1 inch extra around the edges. I say roughly because sometimes my cutting skills were spot on; other times, not so much.

I used a staple gun with 1/4″ staples and started stapling the batting to the cardboard. You may be wondering if the 1/4″ staples were too big, and the answer is sort of. If any didn’t fold like they should, I used the leatherman (or a pair of pliers will work as well) and bent the staple closed. The last thing I needed was something sharp sticking either one of us in the back of the head as we lean against the soon to be cushy headboard!

As I got around to my corners, I figured the best way to get the batting to lay flat was to staple it into a triangle.

Next i just snipped off the triangle on top (not too much) and stapled the two sides down.

Rinse and repeat.

With all five pieces of cardboard stapled to kingdom come (yeah I seriously over did it with the staples, but the staple gun was new and I needed to thoroughly test it out!), the next was to figure out my layout of the medallions. We started with the bigger panels as they would set the tone for the rest of the design. We moved and rearranged the fabric until we decided to go with a reflective pattern. In other words once they were side by side, the pattern on the two larger panels would appear to repeat to continue across the baton. I didn’t take a picture of this process (as I was busy moving around the fabric with Dominick, and I’m still new at this!) but you can get an idea of what I’m talking about here:

(I know it’s a horrible picture!)

Now that we had the pattern for the two larger panels set, we moved on to stapling the fabric on. When it came time to staple and snip the corners, I just followed the steps that I watched here. Super easy and I got really clean and flat corners.

Once all five panels were ready, we started to insert them into each slot. For the bigger ones, it didn’t matter how much tape I applied, I still wasn’t sure that the panels would stay in place so I added a few Command Damage-Free Picture Hanging strips like this directly to the cardboard and attached the bigger panels to the head board.

A Pat On the Back

Next we stood back and admired our handiwork. Five years in the making, but totally worth it! Sometimes it’s all about getting that divine inspiration to get you kick started! And in case you were wondering, this whole project (the cutting and stapling and velcroing part, not the epic fabric part) took us all of 4 hours and that included a break for lunch and watching some Top Gear.

Dominick’s Thought

While he’d been making comments throughout the entire process and saying how much he liked it (especially the Command strips), as we stood their basking in the beauty of our headboard, Dominick, without turning his head to look at me, goes, “Very nice baby! And if we ever want to change it, we can just add different fabric.” 🙂

HA! So until he decides he wants to change it up or until the headboard starts taunting me again, this is how we got an upholdersterd look by using cardboard and fabric! And all for less than $50!

Got anything that you are making over in your home that looks more permanent than it really is?