My daughter, who's in college, was moving into an apartment for her Fall semester and wanted me to make her a new headboard. She wanted something rustic and I had to put my thinkin' cap on to come up with something creative for her.
My first idea was a very ambitious barn door style headboard that I found on Shanty-2-Chic.
I started collecting the materials I would need and quickly life got in the way and I was running out of time.
I'm sure it would have turned out beautiful, but time was dwindling away.
My next idea was to just buy an old wooden door, screw some legs on it, and call it done. We even talked about leaving the door knob on to give it character. Off to the Habitat for Humanity Restore we go!
This seemed like a simple yet creative project that I could do with time quickly slipping away. Only one problem, we couldn't find a door that would work or look good for this. As I walked down the aisle of the Habitat store, I came across the window section. Ah ha! Old windows plus some old wood I had on hand = a pretty cool headboard.
I found 2 matching windows and held them up to a bed they had set up in the store. Just to get an idea of how big they were compared to a full size bed and to make sure they weren't going to be too big. I think we paid about $5 each for them. Bargain!
Back at home I start going through my old wood stash. I decided that I wanted the bed to be really sturdy and picked out some 4 x 4's for the legs. Two 1 x 6's will frame out the top and bottom.
A full size bed is 54" wide so I wanted to get as close to that as I could without much cutting. The windows (together) measured just a smidge over 47". So adding the 4 x 4's on each side (which really measures 3.5" each) would be perfect, adding up to 54".
Meanwhile, my daughter took the windows and used a orbital sander to distress them to her taste. I cut the boards down and attached them together with pocket holes and pocket screws.
WARNING - this frame is fairly heavy and is a bit wobbly until you insert the windows.
After some light sanding, we used Minwax Wood Finishing Cloths to stain the frame. We found that these weren't as messy as using regular stain and gave really good coverage.
I purchased a variety of "L" brackets and screwed them on the back edges of the windows. These would attach the windows to the frame. I laid the frame face down and inserted both windows and screwed the brackets to the frame. Once it was all together, I set it upright and screwed in a small hook and latch to the front center for decoration.
My daughter wanted to drape it with some greenery so she started picking branches off a nearby bush and sticking it in the cracks to give her an idea of how that would look.
We got it finished in time and delivered it to her new apartment on move-in day. Once it was set up and the bed was made, greenery and twinkle lights added, we just loved how it turned out.
Tell me about your creative ideas for a headboard!
Comments