Monday, February 10, 2014

I Will Make a Headboard Out of Just About Anything

Our house has two very cool guest rooms on the top floor. They have built ins, and dormers, and lots of character.  With no kids on the horizon, I decided that one would be the boy room where we could display our brewery signs, and various manly décor items. The other would be a girly room, and would play host to all of my girly room items that were not to Patrick’s taste.

 I started with the headboard in the boy room. I had an inspiration for a nautical themed headboard, it was developed based a set of stair case ballasts that looked very similar. The idea was to use rope to go back and forth between two horizontal pieces of 2x4. Growing up spending more than enough time on my dad’s sail boat, I was very comfortable working with ropes and cleats.  Patrick’s dad always seems to have 2x4’s left over from a suppliers pallets, so I used a few of those for my basic frame.  I started out by measuring the distance between the centers of the bolt holes on the basic metal bed frame. I then propped up a 2x4 vertically, and eye balled how high I would want the headboard to be, and marked it.  My step dad then cut two 2x4’s to that height.  I took my two measured and cut 2x4’s and laid them out on the floor.  I then measured the height from the floor to the middle of the Bolt Holes on the frame, the same ones that I measured the distance between before.  My frame had several sets up holes, so  I measured to the bottom hole, and the top hole. This is where I would use two bolts on each post to secure the headboard to the bed frame.

 I measured and out marked those places on the two 2x4’s, and a had my step dad drill large holes in those places. Next we cut a board to lay horizontally between the two 2x4’s with the holes in them. This piece made the distance between the centers of the drilled holes on the 2x4’s match up with how far apart they would need to be to bolt the headboard to the frame.   Next I wanted my top horizontal board to fit over the top of the 2x4 posts.  I needed  to figure out how much over hang I wanted though. I eye balled that, and just made sure it was even on both ends. 

Next came the hard part. I had to figure out my spacing for my cleats of the top horizontal 2x4, and my hole spacing on my bottom one.  Add to that, I needed to figure out how far around the two horizontal pieces could be so that I wouldn’t run out of rope. My first lay out was too far apart, and I was about a foot short.   Yay, good thing I love math!

I can post my exact measurements if anyone wants them, but what I ended up doing was starting with my 5 boat cleats, and evenly spacing them out in the space between the two end posts. Then I had to make holes on either end of the bottom board, and the evenly in between where the cleats were on the top board. In each spot I had Patrick drill me two holes.  Figuring out this spacing took me about an hour, and about 4 sheets of paper. 

 Once I knew that my measurements were correct, Patrick screwed the whole thing together for me using 3 inch screws.  I then took to painting, which was fun.  The blues were just not dark enough, I wanted a really nice dark navy blue.  I had a free quart of paint at Ace on a promotion they were running a few weeks earlier that I planned to use for those, but it was way too bright. I moved on to a can of Navy blue spray paint that I had in the cupboard, but again, too light. Finally I went back to Ace and gone a small pint size can of the darkest blue they had. I still have the can, I’ll add the name.  This is where things got treacherous. I was painting the frame, and I didn’t want to lean it against anything, because I was being lazy and I didn’t want to wait for it to dry, then paint another section and wait for that to dry.  I stood it precariously up, and somewhat balanced it as I added what I hoped was my final coat. I was right at the finish line when the whole thing tipped over on my, and I was covered in blue paint. Luckily my brother was over and he heard me yelling for help. I’m not sure why I needed help, the structure was really light, I think I just didn’t want to get even more paint on myself. The end result was Robbie getting paint all over his hands, at least it wasn’t more on me.  My final coat of paint now buggered, I had to wait for it to dry, then give it another shot, this time in two goes.  It really shouldn’t have taken that long to paint four 2x4’s. 
Blue Paint in My Hair
 Once the paint was dry I went to install my cleats, and the screws were too short. Seriously, it was the never ending project. The screws I had had heads that were so small that they just keeping falling through the wholes on the cleats.  Back to Ace Hardware.  Finally I was back, I got my cleats on, and I was ready to string the rope through.  With all of these projects I forget what I pain they were until I try to recount what I did.  My final step was to bolt the whole thing to the frame. Total cost for me was $10 in paint, $8 in cleats, $16 in rope, and about $2 in screws.  $36 wasn’t bad for a nice looking head board!

Threading the Rope Through the Headboard

The Finished Product!


I think it turned out really well.  It looks really good with my Target Duvet Cover.  This is now Robbie’s room, he’s here more than you’d think. :)

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