Julia's DIY Upholstered Headboard & Guest Bedroom Makeover

Julia from Pugs Not Drugs submitted her beautiful DIY upholstered headboard. She did a great job and all her hard work deserves a “show off”! Here it is:

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“So last night we upholstered a headboard for our guest room! Took less than 30 minutes! The most intensive part was shopping for the materials, finding the right fabric and the right size batting and plywood. We were fortunate that my father in law had a piece of plywood in the exact dimensions we wanted! We do not have a vehicle big enough for bringing a 60” wide piece of wood home so we were grateful for his help! There are many ways to do this project, some use foam to make a thicker headboard, I couldn’t find foam in the right size so I settled for one layer of batting only. You can use plywood, mdf, or just a square frame if you want it to be more lightweight. You can put legs on it, attach it to your bed, or hang it on the wall. Ours was the right height so that we could just set it behind the bed and push the frame up against it to hold it in place. As long as nobody gets jiggy on our guest bed I think it will be fine ;)

Project materials & budget breakdown:

60” x 48” plywood: free
2 yards of upholstery fabric: $35 (I splurged a bit, although it was on sale at Hobby Lobby)
queen size quilt batting, extra thick: $15
staple gun & staples: $20

TOTAL COST: $70

and I will use that staple gun again and again, love it!!

Directions:

1. Assemble your materials, cut plywood or mdf to the desired size.

2. Lay batting on the floor, set wood on top (warning, pugs find quilt batting QUITE delicious)

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3. Fold batting over and staple into place. (at this point you should probably put your pug outside)

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4. Take extra care at the corners to fold everything over so you get squared edges

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5. Take a break and admire your handiwork thus far

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6. (no pics of this step, sorry). Iron your fabric, don’t be lazy like me and just throw it in the dryer to release the wrinkles, that doesn’t really work.

7. (again no pictures, Tyler and I were both busy during this step). Lay the fabric on the floor, set plywood on top, and staple the fabric just like you did the batting

8. Install headboard via your chosen method (hanging on wall, setting on legs, attaching to bed, wedging between wall and bed, etc). Then step back and admire your handiwork. Congrats, you just DIY’d a headboard!”

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And here is her guest room. I love the soothing light colors and every detail.

“We love having visitors, so one of the rooms I was most excited about decorating in our house is the guest room. We had a guest room/office in our old apartment but it was pretty much just a mish-mash of (way too much) furniture. In this room we went with a neutral wall color and have filled the room with blue, white, cream, and brown accents. We wanted to keep the room light since there is no overhead light fixture. The window and lamps are the only source of light! So far we’ve had good feedback from our guests, I’m sure we will keep tweaking the room over time to make it more cozy and comfortable for our visitors!

Here’s a reminder of the BEFORE:

previous owner apparantly liked his office to be very VERY dark. There were no lights in this room people! And the walls were dark blue!

And our AFTER:

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paint color: Sherwin Williams nantucket dune
bedding set from TJMaxx, came with skirt, sheets, pillow & sham cases, comforter, and decorative pillows, a great value!
curtains, decorative pillow, wall art, and picture frames from Target
bedside lamp from Pier One, capiz lamp from craigslist
upholstered headboard:
DIY!
mirrors from Hobby Lobby
glass pitcher from Homegoods

Budget breakdown:

paint/primer/supplies: $50
upholstered headboard: $50 (not including the staple gun)
bedding set: $120
mirrors: $36
curtains, wall art, frames, pillow from Target: $75
lamps: $60
bentwood rocking chair: hand me down from the in laws!
pottery barn bedside table (not pictured): $5!
new frame for the painting given to us by Tyler’s grandma: $15

TOTAL: $378!

This room is essentially finished, all I have left to do is put a new coat of paint on the bedside table and put it in the room! We’ve had two guests try out the room already, who wants to be next??”

Waving my hands over here! Julia – I’m next! With so much going on here…I’m looking for a retreat and your guest bedroom looks so peaceful. Great job! Thank you so much for sharing!

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