Friday, July 8, 2011

Repurposed Wood Headboard

Ever since the fateful day when our bed broke I have been on a mission to create a new headboard.  And during my most recent trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore I found exactly what I needed to get the project started...four extra wide, dark stained floor boards that were in great shape.  I paid a whopping $4 for all four, brought them home and got right to work.


And after a couple of weeks of work (mostly spent waiting around for paint to dry in the humid Wisconsin weather) I had created this...


A wonderful, if I do say so myself, repurposed king size wooden headboard for a grand total of $37.85!


So how did I do it?  Let's see...I started out with the 4 boards you see above and cut them down to size -80 inches (the length of a king size bed).  For the correct height (32 inches) I needed a little more wood.  Luckily I had a 1"x11" board in the garage, which combined with the other 4 boards made exactly 32 inches.  I stained this board to match the others and then I was ready to go.

Next I painted all 5 boards with two coats of white paint.  After the paint thoroughly dried (very slowly) it was time for some distressing.  Distressing is totally fun mostly because you can't mess it up.  Just make it look old!

To distress these boards I used the sander and fine grain sandpaper.  I took off just enough white paint to let the dark stain come through in spots and it turned out great.


Next I lined up the boards flat on the garage floor and cut two 1"x 5" boards to hold everything together.  I put a few nails through each board from this side to get things started.  (BTW - I am seriously considering asking Santa for a nail gun...so lady like!)


I flipped it over and put in the fancy copper nails.  And actually I have to pause here to make a budget note...the copper nails were the big "investment" in this piece.  The box of nails was $13.98.  Now I included this entire amount in the total I listed above but in reality I only used about 20 nails so if I was being technical I could drop the total spent down by about $10.  Actually that sounds pretty good.  OK new total...$27.85!  Oooh, I like that!


The copper nails were very soft so in order to get them in straight I pre-drilled holes (my husband's brilliant idea) but this did mean they weren't very functional so at this point I went back and added more ugly but functional nails form the other side. 


The final step was to mount my masterpiece on the wall.  I think the easiest way to do this is to use some of these handy brackets...


You can find them in the picture hanging section at ACE or most local hardware stores.  All you do is attach one side of the bracket to the headboard and attach the other side to the wall and they slide right into one another.  They even come with a cute little built in level!


So what do you think?  I am pretty excited about how it came together.  The bedroom is turning out to be an eclectic collection of recycled and reused pieces.  (You can see some of the other items here and here.)  Now I am on the hunt for another bedside table and two lamps.  Sounds like another repurposing project to me!   




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The Shabby Nest