DIY Upholstered Twin Headboards {The Easy Way!}

I've got an update for you on the twin bedroom makeover at the river house! Little by little, pieces have been arriving for the room and today I've got an update on the DIY I'm doing for it: upholstered headboards. This is my third crack (and fourth I guess, since there are two twin beds in this room) at upholstering a headboard and this time I cheated. Yep, that's right, I took the easy way and it was SO worth it!

Want to know the secret behind this DIY? Purchasing an inexpensive, pre-made upholstered headboard from...you'll never guess...Wal-mart, and reupholstering it in a pretty, bold fabric. Y'all, this is the simplest upholstery project ever. If you've always wanted to DIY an upholstered headboard, but have been fearful of the whole process of building the frame and then adding foam, batting and fabric, this project is for YOU.

Supplies you'll need:

• Modway Region Twin Upholstered Headboard*
• Staple gun
• Approximately one yard of fabric (mine is Sherpa Ikat Coastal from Fabric.com)
• Scissors

Here's what the upholstered headboard looks like right out of the box:

Boring and white and perfect for this project. At $59 (crazy, right?), this pre-made headboard was pretty much the same price as the wood, foam and batting I would've purchased to make a headboard from scratch, so buying it was a no brainer. The fabric is really cheap-looking polyester, but it doesn't matter because I covered it right up with pretty fabric! 

Upholstering this headboard was really straightforward. I started by placing the headboard face down on my fabric and lining it up on the pattern so it was straight and centered. Since this fabric has a repeat both vertically and horizontally, it was just a matter of shifting it around until it looked right.

Then I pulled the fabric from the edges onto the back of the headboard and added a single staple at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock. 

I turned the headboard over briefly after adding those four staples to make sure the fabric still looked centered and straight from the front, then continued to pull the fabric taut and staple all the way around.

Corners can be a little tricky, but the two-fold method I use works beautifully and looks very crisp from the front. Here's how I do it:

First I grabbed the loose fabric right at the corner and folded it so that the excess is on the underside. I pulled that piece tight and laid it down flat at a 45 degree angle.

Next, while holding down that piece, I grabbed the remaining loose fabric and folded it under so that the fold at the top edge was parallel to the fabric that's already stapled down. I then laid that down flat on the piece I was holding at a 45 degree angle. I used one hand to hold it all together while I used the other to add a few staples to keep everything in place.

These are the key staple placements to keep those folds in place:

It's kind of like wrapping a present, but you have to mess with the fabric a little bit to get it to lay smooth and flat.

Then I trimmed the excess fabric off from the edges, attached the legs and voila, I was done! 

Hello pretty headboard!

I love how they turned out. It was definitely worth it to take the shortcut with this project. The headboards really will be the focal point of the room with that zippy, fun fabric. Each one took maybe 30-45 minutes to do, so that means I whipped out two upholstered headboards in only a couple of hours - that's a winner in my DIY book! Even if you're not a DIYer, I encourage you to try this method if you're in the market for an inexpensive upholstered headboard (each one cost approximately $75 total). If you're feeling more adventurous and would like to build the frame yourself, check out my post on how to do that here.

I'll be putting the twin bedroom together this week. I can't wait to share the results with you soon!

Curious about the before photos and design plan for this room? Check out the intro post for details!

*Denotes affiliate link. When you make a purchase through that link, May Richer Fuller Be earns a small commission at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting this blog in that way!

Enjoy what you read today?  Enter your email address below to subscribe to May Richer Fuller Be!


Delivered by FeedBurner