DIY Headboard

Something we haven't had since we upgraded to a King mattress 3 years ago is a headboard. Doesn't a headboard just instantly jazz up your bed a little? Complete the look?

My stepdad is completely rebuilding his back deck, and he offered the old wood to us. Free lumber? Yes, please!! We can build a headboard out of reclaimed wood, and it'll be 'green', not to mention FREE. That's a big thing for my husband--he's Dutch, so he's cheap ;)

I looked around on the internet, checking out blogs and pinning things to my Pinterest boards (if you haven't checked out Pinterest yet, DO IT NOW). Here are some pictures that I got inspiration from.

Reclaimed wood headboard from AKA Design

 

Create and Delegate, using Ana White's plans.

Songbird

House*Tweaking

I loved the one from Ana White, but to buy the lumber new (you needed 1x3, 1x4, 1x6, etc., and the lumber we got from my stepdad was 2x10) would be between $80-$100. So that was a no go. I would like to stain the wood to match our floors, but the builder/seller didn't leave us any stain. Sidenote: they left tons of used paint and other stains in the garage, which I have been happy to use. I really liked all of them, but there were little things that bugged me--the banner was too girly, the boards didn't line up with the bed, they were too long/too short, etc.

Nic and I were just gonna have to wing it and hope that, along the way, we'd come up with a design we could agree on and like enough to fasten to our bedframe.

Nic's dad's table saw and the pile of lumber we got from my stepdad.

Sexy look :) I had welding gloves on too.

Brooke checking out the lumber. We decided to sand the wood inside because it was too darn hot out!

After assembly, 'love' written with our bedroom paint color, and a coat of satin polyurethane.

After it dried, it was the 'moment of truth'. We had to get it back in the house without destroying our walls or knocking things off the counter. Nic had a tough time getting it screwed to the bed frame--the screws kept stripping--but he got it done! Excuse the bad picture and my husband's flat-as-a-pancake pillow that makes the headboard look unlevel, but here it is.

Ta-da!

Next: I just need to sew up some more pillows and get started on some artwork for above the headboard.