Continuing on with my work on my friend’s sons’ bedroom, I finished the DIY upholstered headboards with nailhead trim for their twin beds. Karen wanted a soft fabric and chose a pickstitch quilt to use as the upholstery fabric, which worked out great because I was able to cut out a typical step in making upholstered headboards. Usually there is a layer of batting wrapped around the headboard underneath the fabric, but since the quilt was made of two layers of fabric with batting in between, I was able to skip the batting step.
This was my first time making upholstered headboards and I was surprised how relatively simple it was. Remember that the wood cuts below are for making two twin headboards. If you’re making one, just half everything.
I purchased a piece of plywood from Lowes and had it cut in the store into two boards, each measuring 30″ x 42″. I also bought three 3 1/2″ wide pine planks, 8′ long each. When I got home I cut the planks into six pieces: four pieces 47″ long and two pieces 35″ long. I used 1 1/4″ wood screws to attach the pine planks to the plywood as shown below.
I then lay 1″-thick high density foam across the plywood between the pine planks and cut it to fit the opening.
For the bottom I folded the fabric like a present and stapled to the back. I repeated with the other leg before moving on to my second headboard.
I’ve seen a lot of headboards done with nailhead strips instead of individual nailheads but I wanted the look of real nailheads so took the time to hammer them in individually. It went so much more quickly than I expected, likely because the pine I was hammering into is a soft wood so the nailheads sunk right in with a few taps of the hammer.