TBT #9: Salvage Door Turned DIY Headboard

My original thoughts about this project were that it would end in a grand reveal of a beautifully made over bedroom. However, the whole moving and packing thing has sort of put a damper on my decorating motivation. I’ve decided that it didn’t make this project any less worth sharing though. After all, it was another item to cross of the 30 Before Thirty List.

So. Enough caveats and self-deprecation. After being inspired by some great door to headboard projects on Pinterest (here and here) it was time to put our tools where our…er…mouths were? Here’s our new headboard that started life as a panel door on the brink of the landfill in a co-worker’s cellar.

I realize that the poor staging of this photo makes it look like it’s still on hinges. It’s not. The first thing we did was to play around with the door against the bed and decide how high off the floor we wanted. That helped us figure out how tall the legs needed to be. You can see our highly technical tape marks on the wall in the photo below. Conor then took measurements to cut the small, square panels off the top.

After cutting off the small panels, we were left with the four rectangular panels. We (Conor) ended up attaching wooden strips to each short end to make the door wide enough for our queen mattress and still keep the panels centered on the bed. Later, I filled those screw holes with wood putty, sanded it down, and painted over them. Good as new.

Here’s Conor attaching the decorative moulding along the top after cutting it with a miter saw so it would wrap around the corners. I swear I helped on this project by the way. My part comes after.

Here I go! I then took the headboard out in the backyard, prayed that no one yelled at me about drifting clouds of spray paint (seriously, there are about 75 neighbors in a 20 foot radius back there), and primed/painted the headboard. I probably did three coats of primer (very thin, sanding in between) and four coats of paint (same deal) to get the coverage I wanted. Since the coats were so thin, the drying time was pretty short so I got all the priming done in an afternoon and the the painting on another day.

The last step was attaching it to our bed frame. This was your basic hole drilling, bolting experience with a little newlywed cooperation sprinkled in to up the difficulty. Let’s cut to the after:

Don’t judge me on my rumpled sheets either. A couple notes on the installation. I’m not a big fan of being able to see the legs that hold up the headboard. If we weren’t renting, we would have attached it directly to the wall with some sort of french cleat situation but it made my eye twitch to think about patching giant holes before we moved out. Maybe things will change in the new house. Keep your fingers crossed as we’re in the final stages of negotiations. I hope.

Questions or opinions on the results? Let me have it! Oh and I almost forgot.  There are lots of other bloggers tackling Pinterest inspired projects today!  Check them out here, here, here, and here!