DIY oversized headboard

Its Tutorial Tuesday!
Today I am going to share with you the headboard that Hubby and I made. I saw the idea on Pinterest a LONG time ago and have been waiting over a year to try it. I must warn you, this is my first tutorial, so if this is not quite clear, or the pictures aren't the best, I'm sorry. I will get better, I promise! Now that we are done with the introduction, lets begin!

We wanted the headboard to fit our queen size bed, so it measured 60 inches. We just decided to make it square, so we went with 60X60.
Here's what you need for the headboard:

4 pieces of wood (ours was 96 Inches long, by 2.5 inches wide, by .75 inches thick. Two pieces are cut at 60 inches and two cut at 55 inches.

Staple Gun

Staple Gun staples

Saw

Nails (if you want to give the frame a little bit of extra stability)

Hammer (to get those nails, nailed in)

Huge piece of fabric (We are using a super cute, old shower curtain)

Batting

Tape measure for your measurements

Level (to make sure you hang the headboard level)

Pencil 

Nails or Screws (depending on how you want to hang it)

Drill

Drill bit (whatever that is)

Wall anchors

Picture hangers

Here are most of the supplies. I forgot a few in the picture. Whoopsies!

We started our project out at Lowes. We got the pieces of wood that we needed, cut. Two of them at 60 inches and two of them at 55 inches, so that it would really be square when we put it together. 

When we got home, we simply made our square and stapled away! We figured that since the wood was thin, that we would just staple the pieces together instead of nailing them. Plus J wanted to play with his new toy! 

With the extra pieces of wood that we had leftover, we made support beams in the center. We just cut them to fit, so there aren't any real measurements there.

Here is what the wood frame looks like all put together.

Next, we fit the batting to the frame. The batting I bought was really thin, so we doubled it up and cut to size.  You can see here what the batting looked like after it was cut and stapled to the frame.

Here is my hubby, stapling away! Isn't he the greatest?

Next it is time to put the curtain, or your choice of material, on the frame. Just remember that your material has to be large enough to fit the frame with at least 5 inches on each size to fold over and staple to the back of the frame.

Make sure you CAREFULLY flip your frame with the batting over. The batting should be closer to the ground. And also, make sure you have your fabric positioned carefully. The up-side of the fabric should also be facing the ground.

Chose the side you want to start with and staple the first corner. Measure the distance from the edge of the fabric to the edge of the frame.  Take the same amount of fabric on the opposite corner and staple.  Repeat this step with the middle of the fabric. Next go to the opposite side of the frame and pull the fabric tight and staple the edges and the middle of the fabric to the frame.

We had the cutest little audience while doing our project! Charlie was so interested in what we were doing. But of course, he could not part with his ball!

Next is the corners. Fold those suckers like you are wrapping a Christmas present. Make sure you staple the corners well.

Now, when its done, your front corners should look like this:

Now you are ready to staple along the sides of the frame. Go ahead and get staple happy, my hubby sure did! Make sure to pull the fabric tight. Tighter than the late Joan Rivers face. LOL Too soon?

Here it is, all done!!! 

To hang the headboard, we used standard picture holders (the ones with teeth). On the back of the headboard measure 11 inches from the side and 1.5 inches down from the top and mark the fabric (do the same to both sides).  The picture hanger on the left side is placed with the left side touching the mark on the fabric.  The hanger on the right side has the right side touching the mark on the fabric.  Here is a picture of the left hanger.

Then we decided to move the party to the bedroom...... not in that way you nasties! We took our headboard up to the bedroom to see where it would hang. While hubby held the headboard up on the wall I told him how high or low I wanted it. Once the location was decided, we placed the level on top to make sure it was level. Then I marked on the wall, the top (left and right) edges with a pencil. Once the edges were marked, we measured from the edge of the frame to the middle tooth on the hanger and marked that on the wall so we would know where to place our nail to hang the headboard. We repeated this process on the opposite side and then hung the headboard on the wall.

Hubby decided to put wall anchors in the wall, to ensure that nothing slipped out of place. And since its going above our bed, better to be safe than sorry.

Once that was done, we just slapped that sucker on the wall, and all done! The project really wasn't that hard, and only took a few hours to put together. Here is our finished product. =)

Our project isn't the best, but its our own! The pictures aren't the best either. Our living room was a wreck too, so I'll apologize for that. Sorry! I'm soooo not perfect. LOL