DIY Headboards

A headboard made from an old fence. Image by Dana Miller at House*Tweaking.

We have a great bed.  We are vacation clichés it turns out: having returned to our home city from a night at a fancy hotel with the most amazing bed (I think I even dreamed about sleeping comfortably), we went near straight to a fancy bed shop and got ourselves a wonderful new mattress and boxspring.  This was a few years ago, and the purchase made us feel adult in a new way.

Well it’s time for the next milestone, the headboard.  We don’t currently have one.  Now bed designs don’t really excite me, with Japanese platform beds, which are typically without headboards as the exception.  But as mattress sizes grow in height and width (and condo bedrooms seemingly shrink) the bed really becomes the focal point of the room.  It seems that the proper headboard could be the art of the room, framed and accentuated by the bed.  But again, I don’t like most traditional bed designs.  But I do like these cool DIY headboard ideas to steal.

Reclaimed Wood

Image via Better Homes and Garden

Reclaimed flooring creates a high impact headboard at the Ace Hotel.  Image via Mrs. Fancy Pantz

Beautiful reclaimed doors in this image via Slumber Designs

Image via Desire to Inspire

From reclaimed beams, doors, mantles, shutters, even shipping pallets wood from another era certainly makes lovely and striking headboards. I am most impressed by the many design styles and moods reclaimed woods help create, from the romance and whimsy in images 1 and 3 to the edginess of the dark floorboards in the second.  Wow!

Repurpose Furniture Among Other Things

Image via Decor Pad

Image via DIY Network

Two stunning examples of furniture already in the home breathing new life into a new room’s design.  A painted folding screen mounted to the wall doubles as art, while carved versions add sculptural and architectural feel and would, depending on your lighting sources,  create cool shadow plays in the room.

Image via Better Homes and Gardens

Do you have a collection that’s not being displayed correctly?  Or perhaps it’s grown too large to contain on one curio shelf?  I love this treatment of a collection of typographic letters.

Image via Design Sponge

Image via House and Home

Using a bookshelf as a headboard can give the illusion of a custom built-in (first image) while also being very practical and handsome.

Paint, Photos, and Art

If you’re the creative type, why not supersize a favourite photo on canvas and have that double as your headboard.  I love the headboards painted directly on the walls too! Creative, whimsical and beautiful.

I love this modern, fun treatment. Image via Design Sponge

Stenciled headboard.  Image via Shelterness

How beautiful is this idea of a blown up photograph printed on canvas?  Image via Poppy Talk. Check out their site for more photo on canvas examples.

So many ideas to choose from:  I think I’m leaning towards the photo on canvas.  Perhaps we’ll use one of the scenic images we took during that trip that led us to our new bed…