Who Needs Pinterest?

So up until C and I moved to the new apartment we didn't have an actual bed....just a mattress on the floor.  Lame right?  I felt like I was living in some dude's college dorm haha. I decided when we moved that I would do something about it!  I created my own custom headboard....without the help of pinterest!

I went to a store we have here that sells old and/or used furniture from major hotels like Holiday Inn and Marriott.  First, I picked out a metal frame for our king sized bed.  Mattress off the flooe? Check! Next my mom and I searched around until I found a headboard I liked. It was $30.  I brought it home and went to work!

All of the furniture in our place is black, so I knew I wanted to paint it.  First I primed it.  I decided not to paint the back since no one would see it, so I just primed the edges and the front.  Then I had to wait 24 hours before I could paint again.

Next, I did two coats of the black.  This took a little while because I had to wait 24 hours in between coats.  I also had to wait until someone was available to help me move it, because let me tell you, that darn thing was heavy! I think it was solid oak. I decided I wanted to do fabric panels in the big rectangle areas, so I chose not to paint that part.  I wasn't sure how I'd attach the panels, so I didn't want to paint the whole thing. I didn't want to end up attaching something and then pulling up the panels and having an uneven paint splotch mess.

Next, I gathered up supplies for the panels.  I used cardboard I found laying around the house, some quilting batting (make sure its batting, not stuffing), a glue gun and a stapler.  Oh and this awesome fabric I had found that looks like leather....but is much cheaper and softer!

I glued the batting on the front of the cardboard, then covered it with the fabric.  I flipped over the panel and glued the fabric down on the back.  It wasn't tight at all, so I decided to use a basic stapler to pull the fabric tighter and attach it. Gotta use what you got!

 Next I attached the panels to the headboard.  I was going to velcro them down so I could easily switch them out if I wanted, but ultimately decided to just nail them down. I put a teeny tiny nail in each of the four corners. You can barely see them in the picture, but they are white.  It's all I could find at the time.  I ended up painting the top of each nail with a tiny drop of black paint to hide them.

Next was the hardest part....I added nail head trim. That stuff isn't too cheap....but thankfully I had a couple of 50% off coupons for JoAnn Fabrics. I cut the trim into strips (one for each side) and then nailed them down.  It was very difficult to get straight, so you just have to go slowly.  I only gently nailed them in at first so I could adjust if I needed to, then I pounded that stuff in!  I still didn't get the bottom completely straight (thats the side I did last) but I figured it would be covered by the bed and/or pillows anyways.

Here's the final product! I love how it turned out and I am so proud of it. I think I spent about $75 on the entire thing from start to finish.  Not too shabby for a custom headboard!  I didn't look at pinterest (or any other site for that matter) once.  I just came up with this in my head and figured out a way to do it :)

Here it is up in our bedroom.  This is a terrible picture because the room has terrible lighting.  We have one lamp on one side table.  Geez thanks furniture rental company.  Maybe that should be my next task....creating my own side tables!