I’ve gotten a few emails with questions, so this is for those of you who want to do something similar to what I created for my daughter Bailey’s room here. First, to give credit where credit is due, the inspiration! I pinned this ages ago

Pinterest

and knew I wanted to do something similar for Bailey’s headboard. We had a stack of 1x6s left over from our girls’ old bunk bed (they were the slats below each mattress) that I knew I wanted to use for something, and this was the perfect project!

(that’s Bailey peeking out in the bokeh)

Since they are already exactly the width of a twin mattress, I decided to run them vertically on the headboard, as did my inspiration, since I wanted the headboard to extend a bit over the edges of the bed to add a bit of visual weight when finished. To accomplish this, I used eight of the slats as the front of the headboard and two as the braces across the back. (my smallest helper was VERY interested in this project)

I attached the braces to the slats with 1 3/4″ wood screws, predrilling the holes where I wanted them so the wood didn’t split. I originally marked off two places above each slat side-by-side, then realized it would probably be more sturdy if I staggered the screws a bit–hence the scribbled out Xs on the cross piece.

Since this was a project for Bailey’s room, she was super keen to help out, so she got the task of placing all the screws in the drilled holes. She did a fantastic job!

Once the first cross piece was screwed on, it was simply a matter of adding the second cross piece using the same step, with a week or so inserted between the two tasks for me to get to a hardware store and buy more screws. *cue phone on-hold music*

Then it was on to painting! Sanding, spray priming with the worst spray primer ever (one can didn’t even cover the entire headboard, what a waste of money), then another bout of sanding to smooth the primer layer–no photos because who really needs to see images of a sanded, primed, then sanded again headboard? I may have some talents, but photographing myself sanding or spray painting is not one of them.)

On to painting–I had a gallon of the perfect green “oops” paint from Lowe’s that I’d picked up for five bucks that I planned to use. Both my big girls helped with this step, brushing on the paint with sponge brushes while I smoothed out their drips with a roller.

The green was a little more vibrant and yellow-toned that I wanted, so I simply mixed a little of the left-over white dresser paint with some water and lightly white-washed the surface. All but the last two planks are white-washed in the above photo–so it was a subtle result but one I was very happy with. You can see below how runny my white-wash was below. (and yes, that’s my baby bump in pink in the lower left. I think that’s as close to maternity portraits as I’m going to get this time around.)

Then slop it on! It looked very stark to begin with but slowly faded as the water/paint mixture dried.

I knew that “love” would not really be fitting for my seven-year-old daughter, but since she is obsessed with all things fairy and make-believe right now, I had the perfect substitute word! I simply wrote it out (and yes, it took a few tries) in pencil then used an artist brush to paint layer after layer of more white paint to fill in the letters.

At this point, I let the project sit for a few weeks. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave it just like this, or do some additional distressing/whitewashing. The green was still a little strong, though, so I finally bit the bullet and sanded all the edges and parts of the front down, leaving this:

But then the yellow-green came back–argh! So one more light coat of whitewashing and she was perfect.

Next problem was how to attach this beast of a headboard to the wall–this sucker is heavy! I didn’t want to screw it in from the front and have visible screws showing. I hadn’t designed the back to use a fancy cleat system (and don’t really have the tools to fashion one of those anyway) and was kind of stuck. Sawtooth hangers . . .no, too flimsy. Whatever I used had to screw into the back then be capable of attaching to screws in the wall.

Then I found a package of picture hanging hardware at Target, the kind you use to attach a hanging wire across the back of a frame by screwing a small piece into each side. These screws were 3/4″ long, so fairly sturdy, and I judged that found evenly spaced along the length of the cross piece would be sufficient to hold the weight.

Add four long screws and some heavy-duty drywall anchors:

and I got the project done! I’m not going to estimate the amount of time it took me, since I had to work in bits and pieces of time across most of the summer, but it’s finished and that’s all that matters!

More changes to this room to come, but for now, I’m just thrilled to check one project off my list!

Lots of linking this week–check out all the great projects over at

, , the Perfectly Imperfect furniture link party,

, and . There are some talented people in this blog world!